


You I Know

by Luthien



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Regency, Dancing, Dreams, F/M, Fencing, House Party, Jaime and Cersei are cousins, Regency, Regency Romance, Romance, Slow Burn, Swordplay, Waltzing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-05-28 06:00:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19387954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: The Honourable Miss Brienne Tarth meets Major Ser Jaime Lannister at a country house party at Riverrun, the seat of the Duke of the Riverlands. Things go downhill from there.





	1. Arrivals

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as ever, to Telanu for the beta!
> 
> This is a Regency AU, and it's set in an England that's a sort of unholy fusion with Westeros. London is the capital, and the various great houses of Westeros have become dukedoms. Other lords, like Brienne's father, hold titles at various different levels of the English peerage.
> 
> There are a bunch of duchesses in this, particularly in this first chapter, so I've created this handy reference of characters and their titles just to make sure things are clear.
> 
> **Dramatis Personae**
> 
> Edmure Tully, Duke of the Riverlands (the host)  
> Roslin Tully nee Frey, Duchess of the Riverlands, his wife (the hostess)
> 
> The guests:
> 
> Catelyn Stark, Duchess of the Northlands, and sister to the Duke  
> Miss Jeyne Poole, her companion
> 
> Walder Frey, Earl Frey, father to the Duchess
> 
> Olenna Tyrell, Dowager Duchess of the Reach  
> Lady Margaery Tyrell, her granddaughter  
> Lord Loras Tyrell, her grandson
> 
> Lord Renly Baratheon, younger brother of the Duke of the Stormlands
> 
> Major Ser Jaime Lannister, son of Lord Tywin Lannister, the Prime Minister, and nephew of Kevan Lannister, Duke of the Westerlands  
> Mr Addam Marbrand, Ser Jaime's lifelong friend
> 
> The Honourable Miss Brienne Tarth, only daughter of Selwyn Tarth, Viscount Tarth of Tarth

The lovely cover art by Ro Nordmann

_But it's you I know and no one else will do_   
_Yes it's you I know with all you put me through_

\- From 'You I Know', by Neil Finn as sung by Jenny Morris

~

**_England, September 1814_ **

It rained the week of the new Duchess of the Riverlands' first official house party. It rained the entire week, and not just the usual light, dismal drizzle that ensured that England remained a green and pleasant land.

Well, the rain still ensured that it remained green, in any case, if not exactly pleasant right now, the Honourable Miss Brienne Tarth thought with a sigh as she looked out of the window of the yellow saloon at Riverrun, seat of the Duke of the Riverlands, yet again.

The rain had been coming down in torrents for five long days, since Sunday; heavy, steady unrelenting rain that let up for neither man nor beast. The country roads had quickly turned to mud, as was not unexpected, but as it kept raining the rivers rose, some of the lower lying houses in the villages and small market towns were swamped, and what had begun as an inconvenience started showing all the hallmarks of a crisis, if not yet quite a catastrophe.

"It's a catastrophe!" wailed the unmistakable voice of the Duchess from the next room. "The Dowager Duchess of the Reach says that theirs was the very last carriage to get through before the south-western road became impassable this afternoon."

"There, there, my dear. No need to put yourself in a taking over it," came the slightly harassed tones of the Duke in response. "You still have the two young ladies and the two young gentlemen to entertain, as well as my sister and the Dowager Duchess for company. I'm sure many of your plans will still come to fruition without any difficulty."

There was silence for a moment.

"Six guests. _Six_ ," said the Duchess with deceptive calm, "if we don't count your sister's companion. And no chance of any of the others getting through now that the roads have been cut off in every direction, and probably halfway back to London as well." There was another silence, and Brienne could almost hear the Duchess drawing in a deep breath, before she cried, "It's going to be a disaster! My first house party! Whatever am I to do?"

The Duke said something then, but in so low a voice that Brienne couldn't make out the words.

"No, that doesn't help!" declared the Duchess. "The Dowager expects that Lady Margaery and Lord Renly be given the opportunity to get to know each other a little better and make sure that they will suit before any betrothal is announced, which means that there's no help for it than that Lord Loras must be prevailed upon to at least make polite conversation with that great galumphing beast of a girl!"

The girl—or young lady—in question went hot, starting at her face and long neck and moving downwards in a long flush beneath her chemisette and her bodice, and sat down heavily on the mahogany scroll end sofa.

Those who listen at doors never hear any good of themselves, Brienne's old nurse had used to tell her, and, as usual, Nurse was right. But that wasn't the worst of it. Brienne knew what others invariably thought of her. She didn't like it, but she'd become used to it. She'd had no choice. But Renly… Renly's presence was the only reason she'd agreed to attend this wretched house party at all.

When the invitation had come from the Dowager Duchess of the Reach for her old friend's granddaughter to spend some time with the Dowager and her family, Brienne had politely declined. The Dowager's reminiscences of the times she and Brienne's grandmother had had as girls together during their first London season were obviously fond, but Brienne was not her grandmother, nor anything like her. Her grandmother had been a great beauty, so everyone said, and had been expected to make a match of it with the Duke of the Reach. But somehow, it had been Lady Olenna Redwyne who had married the Duke, and Brienne's grandmother had instead married Brienne's grandfather and become Viscountess Tarth. It was not nearly so illustrious a match, though Tarth was still an old and respected House. After their respective marriages, the Duchess of the Reach and Lady Tarth had seen very little of each other and did not maintain a correspondence, despite their previous close friendship. After so little contact over so many years between the two families, Brienne hardly felt that she owed the Duchess anything, regardless of the compliment she bestowed simply by showing Brienne any notice at all.

Brienne had thought no more of the invitation, but then another encouraging letter had arrived, suggesting that Brienne come from Tarth to meet the Dowager and her grandchildren at Riverrun, where they were to stay for a full week rather than just the four days of the official house party. From there they would journey together back to Highgarden, the seat of the Dukes of the Reach, and thence possibly even to London, though of course London was sadly thin of company at this time of year.

None of that had held any interest for Brienne, until, right at the end of the letter, the Dowager had mentioned that her grandson's good friend, Lord Renly Baratheon, would also be attending the house party.

Renly.

Brienne had met Lord Renly Baratheon more than four years before, when he'd come to Tarth and attended her come-out ball. She'd been eighteen, huge, ugly, ridiculous even in her everyday clothes, but the fussy ball gown of white satin with an overdress of pink silk gauze, over-trimmed with far more ribbons and frills and flounces than even fashion demanded, had made her look hideous. Her father's lady of the moment had chosen it for her, and if Brienne had needed any more proof that the woman despised her, the gown was certainly it. The colour did not suit her, making her pale, freckled skin look by turn too pink or simply sallow, depending on the light, and the cut was clearly designed with a much shorter, slighter lady in mind. The attempts by the Woman's haughty dresser to curl Brienne's lank, blonde hair into fashionable ringlets had also not met with success, leaving her hair frizzed and untidy, and the addition of a bandeau adorned with pink silk roses only served to make her head resemble a rose bush. It had been with a sinking heart that Brienne had lifted her head up high and entered the ballroom on her father's arm.

They'd opened the ball together, dancing a country dance, after which Brienne had expected to retire to the sofas around the edges of the dancefloor with the matrons and dowagers, and spend the rest of the evening watching half the other young ladies of the Stormlands enjoy dancing at _her_ ball.

Instead, a miracle had happened, a fairytale. Her father had left the ballroom, probably to check on some of his cronies in the card room, and she'd been all but besieged by young gentlemen begging her for a dance, some of them even daring to hope that she had permission to dance that shockingly intimate new German dance, the waltz. And, just for a moment, Brienne had felt like the most beautiful girl in the world—until the same young men had started roaring with jeering laughter at the thought of any of them—any gentleman in the world—wanting to have anything to do with 'Brienne the Beauty', that great joke of a female whom no one would ever wish to dance with, much less marry.

Then Renly was there before her, bowing over her hand, and asking to do himself the honour of leading her onto the floor for the cotillion. Brienne had looked at him suspiciously, barely holding back a flood of tears, but he had simply smiled and asked again if he might have the honour of dancing with her.

And so they had danced the cotillion, and Renly had stood up with Brienne again for the supper dance, and then taken her in to supper and treated her as if she were the only girl in the world. Propriety demanded that Renly not dance with her more than twice in one evening, but his example encouraged a number of other young gentlemen—though not any of those who had laughed at her, for which she was profoundly grateful—to ask her for a dance and, while she was not engaged for every set, she still danced more often than she sat out and watched.

The Woman had been waiting for her in her bedchamber when at last Brienne came upstairs that night. She'd asked if Brienne had really thought that Lord Renly Baratheon, brother of the Duke of the Stormlands, would even remember her name if they ever chanced to meet again.

Brienne was not stupid. She knew that Renly was only being kind, but wasn't that the mark of a true gentleman? He had nothing to gain from showing her a kindness and protecting her from further hurt, and for that alone Brienne would have been his willing slave.

The Woman had laughed, and Brienne had smelled strong drink on her breath as she pushed past Brienne and left the room.

The Woman had driven away in a smart carriage not many days after, never to return, just like all the others. For once, Brienne was not sorry to see her father's wandering eye settle on a new prospect.

With the benefit of hindsight, and four years more experience of the world, Brienne understood now that the woman had been envious. Not of Brienne's looks, obviously, but of her position. She was the daughter of a viscount, and nothing could ever change that. She was also the only woman in the world to whom her father's affections—such as they were—had always been constant.

As the daughter of a viscount, and, moreover, the heiress to one of the few titles in all of England that could descend along the female line if no male heirs remained, Brienne was not, in point of fact, a bad match at all for the younger son of a duke. She needed to take a husband, to produce an heir for the viscountcy, and Renly had reached the age when he was also expected to marry. Kindness and perhaps eventual friendship were not a bad basis for a marriage. They were certainly a better foundation than that of many other marriages amongst members of their class. Those marriages tended to be driven by the twin requirements of money and position to better advance the standing of the family, with little regard for the feelings of, or sometimes even the possibility of compatibility between, husband and wife.

So when the second letter from the Dowager Duchess of the Reach arrived, and Brienne's eyes lighted on Renly's name, she had resolved to agree to the Dowager's proposal, and, when the invitation to the house party from the Duchess of the Riverlands had soon followed, she had accepted that as well.

And now, it appeared, it had all been for nothing. Whatever plans the Dowager Duchess had for Brienne, it was very clear that they did not involve Lord Renly. If the Dowager Duchess intended a union between Lord Renly and Lady Margaery then Brienne would not be able to compete. House Tarth was nothing like as powerful, rich or important as either of the two dukedoms, and Lady Margaery was bound to be beautiful, graceful and accomplished. Even if Lady Margaery proved to be merely pretty and of average competence at dancing and the other accomplishments expected of well-born young ladies, she would still be far more beautiful, graceful and accomplished than Brienne.

Brienne had made the hard journey here from Tarth with only her maid for company, travelling by boat across the narrow strait between Tarth and the mainland, onward by post-chaise through all the rain and mud, staying at inns of indifferent quality along the way, and now she was stuck at Riverrun until the flood waters receded. And she would have nothing to show for it at the end of it all.

Brienne glanced over at the window again. The wind had changed direction, and now the rain was spattering against the pane.

In the next room, the conversation between the Duke and Duchess continued.

"And there's your father, of course, to make up the numbers at dinner," the Duke was saying.

"It's not enough," the Duchess replied, sounding as if she were at her wits' end. "Even with Father here, and even if we could persuade your sister's companion that it would be best for her to take her meals in her room, we'd still be a gentleman short at dinner." The Duchess uttered the last few words as if such an eventuality were the beginning of the End of Days.

The Duke made soothing noises. Brienne could picture him gently patting his wife's shoulder, as if she were a skittish mare from his stable. He was a man who always seemed more at ease in the company of horses than people.

There was a soft knock at the open door, and the Duchess of the Northlands came a little way into the room. "Ah, there you are, Miss Tarth," she said.

Brienne got to her feet at once. "Duchess," she said, "you were looking for me, or so I apprehend?"

"Yes," the Duchess said, "but only so that we could share some pleasant conversation and perhaps some tea." Putting action to words, she rang for a servant, and when one of the footmen appeared a moment later, she requested some tea be brought up for herself and Miss Tarth. Brienne would never have dared give orders to someone else's servants like that, but then, she wasn't a duchess, nor ever likely to be. She had also only been staying in the house for two days, while the Duchess of the Northlands had been visiting her brother the Duke of the Riverlands for some weeks.

Brienne had been tense and nervous, arriving at such a grand house where she knew no one, and a day later than expected, thanks to the horrendous weather. Her nervousness had turned to dismay when she had discovered that the Dowager Duchess of the Reach and her party had been delayed even more, and would now be staying only for the duration of the house party itself, and not an entire week as originally planned.

Heart sinking, Brienne had faced the prospect of two long days of excruciating attempts to be sociable with the Duke and Duchess of the Riverlands, whom she had never met and of whom she knew very little, before the others— _Renly_ —arrived.

Luckily, the Duchess of the Northlands was also present. Unlike her brother, or his somewhat sulky wife, she was a deft hand at carrying a conversation, and soon had Brienne at her ease. She and Brienne had not much in common, with Brienne having spent her entire life on Tarth while the Duchess had grown up here at Riverrun before marrying the Duke of the Northlands when she was barely eighteen, and then going to make her home far in the North at Winterfell. Moreover, the Duchess must have been a good score of years older than Brienne at the least, and yet, a friendship sprang up between them in only a few short days. It wasn't just the lack of any other congenial company that drew them together, or being stuck inside the great house with little to do other than read, work at their stitching, or converse while drinking what seemed like gallons of tea. Somehow, the great lady from the North, with her deep red hair and bright blue eyes and vestiges of what had once been a great beauty, and the excessively tall and ungainly young lady from a remote island came to understand each other in a way that was as welcome as it was unexpected to both.

The Duchess seated herself in a nearby sabre-legged armchair, upholstered in fashionable green and gold stripes.

"The Dowager Duchess of the Reach and her grandchildren have arrived at last," she said, as Brienne returned to her seat on the sofa.

"Indeed," Brienne said, as if she had not overheard any of the conversation that had just taken place in the saloon next to this one. "I heard the commotion in the entrance hall and wondered who it might be. But you mention the Dowager and her grandchildren. Was not Lord Renly Baratheon also accompanying them?" she added, trying to make the question sound as casual as she could. Perhaps she had never had a real chance of marriage with Renly, even without the Dowager Duchess's machinations, but she still longed to see again his kind smile and handsome countenance.

"Oh, yes. Lord Renly is here as well. I met him on the stairs just now as he was being shown up to his room. I had not seen him since he was a boy, but I recognised him at once. He has grown into those dark Baratheon looks of his." The Duchess's reply was just as casually worded as Brienne's question, but the look that accompanied it was not.

Brienne coloured. "We met once before, Lord Renly and I. He attended my come-out ball."

"I see," the Duchess said, watching her face keenly, and Brienne thought that she did see—far, far more than made Brienne comfortable. "Have you met Lady Margaery or Lord Loras before?" she asked, instead of pursuing the subject of Lord Renly further.

Brienne tried not to let out a sigh of relief. She was not used to kindness. "No, I have never met any of the Tyrells, though the Dowager Duchess and my grandmother knew each other well in their youth. It is because of her fond memories of that friendship that the Dowager Duchess suggested that I come to the house party here and then travel back to Highgarden with her for a time."

"Hmm," said the Duchess. "I have never known the Dowager Duchess to do anything out of simple _fondness_."

"Are you telling me to be wary, Duchess?" Brienne asked, because while polite conversation demanded careful verbal steps, sometimes, when the subject was important enough, it was better to be blunt than to risk the chance of misunderstanding.

"Oh, always be wary, Miss Tarth, with any members of the _ton_." The words were said lightly, but the Duchess's eyes were completely serious. "You can still decline the Dowager Duchess's invitation without causing offence, if you wish. Make some excuse about concern for your father's health, and being his only child."

Since this was very much what Brienne had been thinking herself since she'd discovered the Dowager Duchess's plans for Renly and Lady Margaery, she nodded. "I was beginning to think as much myself, but the fact remains that I am my father's only heir. I must marry, and the Dowager Duchess's invitation seemed to me the best way of meeting some eligible young gentlemen. There are few enough of those on Tarth." Or even none at all. Not _gentlemen_ , regardless of the rank they were born to.

The Duchess was silent for a moment, as if searching for just the right words before she spoke. "You have never had a London season, or so you told me the other day."

"That's true, Duchess. My father held my come-out ball at Evenfall Hall, our home on Tarth. When I was first out, I attended some assemblies—just provincial ones in the towns along the coast, nothing as grand as London or Bath—and even a ball at Storm's End on one occasion. But dances are… not my forte. After a while, it was easier simply to stay on Tarth and keep house for my father." And to don a shirt and breeches so that she could ride and fence and ride some more, and then strip them off to swim in the sapphire waters around Tarth, though she could tell none of that to the Duchess.

"Until you realised that an eligible husband would not simply appear at the door one day, asking for your hand," the Duchess said, though not unkindly.

"Until then, yes," Brienne agreed with a sigh.

The Duchess seemed about to speak again, but before she could do so the footman arrived with the tea things. Once the footman had set down the tea tray on the mahogany side table by her chair, the Duchess dismissed him and set about pouring the tea from a delicate porcelain teapot that Brienne recognised as being decorated in the lavishly gilded but somewhat garish Spode Rich Japan pattern. Brienne herself preferred something plainer and more serviceable with which to take tea, but she supposed that the new Duchess of the Riverlands was making up for a childhood spent at the Twins, the notoriously Spartan home of her father, Lord Frey.

Once they were both properly settled with matching cups and saucers, the Duchess sipped her tea and placed her cup back in its saucer.

"You said that dances were not your forte, Miss Tarth," she began, "but perhaps it is more a question of finding the right dances and the right company, the right _sponsor_ to properly launch you into society."

Brienne eyed the Duchess uncertainly. "Forgive me, Duchess," she said, "but I don't go into society a great deal and sometimes I find the sort of circumlocution that is considered to constitute polite conversation to be... difficult. I would prefer plain speaking, if it's not impertinent to ask for it."

The Duchess smiled. "My dear," she said, "this is exactly why we get on so well, despite so short an acquaintance. You have no idea how refreshing it is to speak with a young lady who is not so careful in her speech as to be mealy-mouthed or always looking to her mama to check that she has not put a foot wrong."

Brienne smiled ruefully. "I don't remember my mother, and sometimes it's as if my feet know no other direction but the wrong one."

The Duchess reached out and took her hand. "Ah, forgive me. I had forgot, for a moment, that you grew up as motherless as I." She squeezed Brienne's hand before letting it go again. She made a firm little nod, then, as if something had been decided. "Very well, my dear Miss Tarth, to put it bluntly, I wish to extend you an invitation of my own. Next year, I intend to launch my elder daughter, Sansa, into society, and I hope very much that you will accompany us to London and enjoy all the delights that the season has to offer."

Brienne stared at the Duchess with wide eyes, and had to make a conscious effort to shut her mouth. "Are… are you sure, Duchess? I am not a good fit with polite company, as a general rule."

"Nonsense," said the Duchess. "As my guest, it is up to society to fit with you, and not the other way around." This was said with a hint of steel in her voice, which reminded Brienne that this friendly, easy to talk to lady was also one of the highest ranked and most powerful peeresses of the _ton_ , or _le bon ton_ , to use the full phrase: the upper ten thousand of English society, the _beau monde_ , the beautiful people, in whose company Brienne had never thought to belong.

"I will be three-and-twenty years old," Brienne said helplessly. Most young ladies came out at the age of seventeen or eighteen at the start of their first London season, around Easter, and hoped to have secured at least a creditable match by the time the members of the _ton_ retired to their country estates in August. Brienne, on the other hand, had never had a London season and she'd been out for _years_ , with very little to show for it.

"Yes, you will make some lucky gentleman a _much_ more comfortable wife than some of those silly chits just out of the schoolroom." The Duchess gave a nod of approval. "Take some time to think it over, if you wish, and perhaps talk to your father when you return home before giving me a definite answer."

"But Lady Sansa will not want..." Brienne began. "I mean, she doesn't know me at all."

"I know Sansa would enjoy your company as much as I do. And it might be good for her to have someone closer to her own age to confide in," the Duchess said.

Brienne nodded, wondering what Lady Sansa had done to warrant her mother's worry. "I will think on it, Duchess. I am very conscious of the honour you do me and I thank you very much for the invitation."

The Duchess smiled again, but before she could speak there was the sound of voices in the entrance hall, and of the great oak door, a remnant of the medieval castle that had once sat on the site of the current house, closing with a thud.

A footman came hurrying into the room, trying to bow awkwardly at the Duchess while still continuing on his way into the crimson saloon next door. Before he reached the connecting door, their host and hostess walked through it. The Duchess of the Riverlands eyed her sister-in-law and Brienne quite hard, clearly wondering if they had overheard any of her indiscreet conversation with her husband, but then the footman was bowing before her.

"Your grace," he said. "More guests have arrived."

"But the roads in every direction have been cut off by the flood waters," the Duchess replied, as if the fact that more guests had arrived anyway was somehow the man's fault.

"The gentlemen arrived on horseback, your grace," the footman said.

"Gentlemen?" Even from this distance, Brienne could see the sudden light in the Duchess's eyes. "Indeed."

The echoing sound of booted feet moving swiftly across the flagstones that paved the great entrance hall and growing ever closer made them all turn in expectation to the main door of the saloon.

A moment later, the butler appeared. He barely had time to announce, "Major Ser Jaime Lannister and Mr Marbrand, your grace!" before two gentlemen entered the room. They were both perhaps a little over thirty years of age, and both also had the bearing of military men. There, the resemblance between them ended. The second man, standing slightly behind his companion, was of above average height and of pleasant countenance with dark red hair, currently somewhat damp with rain, cut short at the back and brushed forward on top in the Brutus crop made popular by Mr Brummell some years before. He wore a long cloak, and Brienne could see peeping out from beneath it the top-boots and biscuit-coloured breeches that denoted the man of fashion.

The other man, though… He was tall, almost as tall as Brienne herself, with broad shoulders that filled out his bottle-green riding coat without need to resort to padding. Likewise, his skintight buckskin breeches clearly owed nothing to any assistance from his valet. His neckcloth was tied neatly, with a certain military precision, and his top-boots, though obviously of the first quality, were spattered with mud. He carried a many-caped greatcoat over his arm. The butler still hovered nearby in clear hopes that the gentleman would surrender the greatcoat and the curly brimmed beaver hat that he carried, which was dripping water into the carpet. The gentleman wore his fair hair a little longer than was strictly fashionable, but the look in his green eyes and the small, mocking smile on his lips both said clearly that here was a man who was no mere follower of fashion—or anything. He was, quite simply, almost insultingly good-looking, and it was obvious that he knew it.

Allowing the butler to take their sodden outer garments at last, the gentlemen strode over to the Duke and Duchess of the Riverlands, and of course it was the fair-haired man who spoke. "Duke, Duchess, it is a pleasure to see you once again," he said as he bowed over the Duchess's hand. "May I present my friend, Mr Marbrand. Addam, their graces, the Duke and Duchess of the Riverlands."

Mr Marbrand also bowed to the Duke and Duchess, and thanked them for their hospitality.

Ser Jaime—for clearly the fair-haired man could be none other—then turned to the Duchess of the Northlands, who, along with Brienne, had risen from her seat when the gentlemen entered the room. "Duchess," he said, "it has been far too long," and bowed over her hand in turn.

The Duchess all but snatched her hand back. "It has been several years, indeed," she said, in an icy voice that implied quite clearly that the years that had passed since last they met were still not long enough for her.

The Duchess's disdain was like water off a duck's back to Ser Jaime. He turned an inquiring look on Brienne and the Duchess of the Riverlands came forward to perform the introductions.

"Brienne, my dear, may I present Major Ser Jaime Lannister, the son of the Prime Minister, Lord Tywin Lannister, and nephew to the Duke of the Westerlands."

For the first time since he entered the room, Ser Jaime betrayed a degree of discomfiture. " _Eldest_ son," he said in a low voice. "I am my father's eldest son, Duchess."

"Of course," said the Duchess of the Riverlands quickly, in a way that made Brienne wonder why the Duchess had forgotten the existence of Ser Jaime's brother or brothers. "Ser Jaime, this is Miss Tarth, the daughter of Lord Tarth. I don't believe you have met before."

"Indeed we have not met," Ser Jaime said, and bowed to her in turn. "I would have remembered meeting such a… singular young lady," he added, and while his words were unexceptionable, the slight twist to his lips conveyed his true meaning.

It was like a slap in the face. Brienne could almost feel all the colour draining away from her cheeks. But Ser Jaime was turning away, no doubt already having put the sight of the towering, ugly young lady out of his mind. She was vaguely aware of Mr Marbrand being introduced, and she made some sort of response which seemed to be appropriate, but she could not afterwards recall a word of what she had said.

All Brienne knew was that she despised Jaime Lannister with all her heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, the title is ironic for the moment. ;)
> 
> Just a quick note on forms of address: Dukes and duchesses are only addressed as "your grace" by the lower orders. Members of the upper classes address them directly as "Duke" or "Duchess", so that's what Brienne does here.


	2. The Kingslayer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Undun for beta-ing this chapter, since my usual beta is off in the sun somewhere while I shiver through the winter. ;)

"Thank you," Jaime said, as the footman who had led him to the bedchamber that was to be his for the next few days finished unpacking what belongings Jaime had brought with him in his saddlebags. 

"Is there anything else you require, my lord?" the boy—for boy he still was, with that sort of look of enthusiasm on his face—asked.

"Nothing, apart from ensuring that my clothing is wearable by the time I'm ready to dress for dinner," Jaime replied. "And call me 'ser'. I'm not a lord, unlike just about every other gentleman in this house, it would seem." 

"Yes, _ser_ ," the boy said quickly, but Jaime noted that he didn't blush at his error. Instead, he had the look of someone carefully taking note of some small detail for future reference. The boy might go far with an outlook like that. He was certain never to make the same mistake twice.

"What's your name?" Jaime asked. He needed to call the lad something, since he would be acting as Jaime's valet while he was here at Riverrun. Jaime's valet Peckledon was with the rest of Jaime's luggage in his travelling carriage somewhere on the other side of the flood waters, so who knew when Jaime would be reunited with his dress uniform? Or, indeed, with Peckledon.

"Tristofer," the boy replied. "I'm called Tristofer, ser."

"Well, that won't do," Jaime said, bringing his brows down in a suggestion of sternness. "Footmen are addressed by their Christian names, certainly, but a valet is an altogether more superior creature, and until further notice you will be my valet. What is your family name?"

"Smith, ser."

No wonder the boy's parents had named him something as distinctive as Tristofer. "Well, then, Smith, you may take my evening clothes and see how well you do at getting the creases out of them. And, possibly, the damp as well. I'll expect to see you again in time to help me dress for dinner."

"Yes, ser," the boy said, gathering up the clothing that he'd already laid out on the bed with an eagerness that Jaime could not remember ever possessing himself. And yet he must have been young and eager once, mustn't he?

Jaime waited until the door closed behind Smith and then leaned back against it, closing his eyes. He waited until he felt the muscles of his face go slack as his public countenance disappeared and was replaced with… Jaime. It was like taking off a mask. Putting it on in the morning and taking it off again when he retired in the evening, or at moments like this, was becoming harder with every passing day. And yet, the mask had almost slipped when he'd heard the girl's name. How he'd maintained his facade once he looked into her blue eyes, he had no idea.

What had he called her? 'Singular', that was it. A vain attempt to deny to himself that he'd ever seen another pair of eyes like hers. No, of course he'd never met anyone else named Tarth, or even anyone else _from_ Tarth.

Except that he had. More than three years before, in Spain. _He'd_ been a green boy, perhaps not even having reached his majority yet, despite being half a head taller than Jaime and built like something constructed out of stone rather than living flesh and blood and bone. The young man had only recently joined the regiment, his father having purchased a pair of colours for him, a cornetcy in the First Dragoons. It was his first engagement. It should have been a relatively straightforward battle, if any battle could truly ever be described thus. And, for the first day, it was. 

Their task was to defend the barricaded Spanish border village of Fuentes de Oñoro from the assault of the French Army, and so prevent the French relief force from breaking through the lines of fortifications that surrounded the besieged Portuguese fortress of Almeida. The British and Portuguese forces lost ground at first, but they rallied and fought back, and by the time the sun set on the first day they had reclaimed the parts of the village that the French had seized that morning. Both sides rested on the second day, recovering from the fierce fighting on the first day and revising their strategies and battle plans in readiness for the day to come.

And then there was the third day of the battle.

How had the French discovered that the right flank was the weak link? Jaime had wondered, and then he'd seen… Well, a question in his mind had been answered by incontrovertible proof of betrayal. He should have done something about it then, but he hesitated, so shocked that he could not believe the evidence of his own eyes. And then the French light cavalry swooped in, carving a line right through the centre of the British infantry, and there was no more time for anything but to fight back, to command his men, and ride to the rescue of the Seventh Division infantry before they were wiped out.

His own men were not untouched at the end of that fight, and one of them was the young cornet with the startlingly blue eyes. His horse, a massive creature to be able to bear such a rider, had been shot from under him, but that did not deter him. The boy had been on his feet in an instant, wielding his sword in broad, cutting strokes, and for a moment it had seemed as if he would sweep a path through the opposing forces back behind the British line to a place of relative safety. And he'd almost made it, too. Almost. He'd been cut down right in front of Jaime, felled like some great oak, going down with a mighty crash. Jaime had sprung down from his horse and grabbed the young giant by the shoulders, thinking somehow to drag him away from the thick of the fighting, but one look showed him that the light was already fading from the blue eyes. He knew then it was too late. He also knew that it was his fault. If he'd acted immediately…

And then, in a cold fury at odds with the fire of battle he'd felt only moments before, he'd vaulted back into his saddle and ridden off to find his commanding officer, Colonel King, and do what he should have done in the first place. He'd found him, and been confronted with the sight of an even worse betrayal. This time, Jaime had done his duty, at least as he saw it.

Jaime had been bestowed with a notorious appellation that day. Kingslayer. Ironic really, that he'd achieved notoriety for what was truly the finest act of his life. There had been a formal inquiry, of course, and though nothing was ever proved, the old generals had shaken their heads and muttered and sent him dark, knowing looks. Only the influence of his father, and the fact that his uncle was a duke, had saved his commission.

Tarth. Galladon Tarth. That had been the cornet's name. Jaime would never forget it, or those eyes of astonishing blue.

And then he'd heard the name and seen those eyes again today—or, at least, eyes so similar that there could be no mistake that he was beholding someone of close kinship to that young man. The young lady was tall, too, tall enough to look Jaime in the eye. He hadn't been able to hold that look for longer than the absolute minimum that civility demanded upon being introduced to a lady. He'd turned away, grateful when the Duchess stepped in to introduce Addam to Miss Tarth.

A knock came from the other side of the bedroom door, and with a start Jaime realised that he was still leaning against it. He hastily removed himself to one of the armchairs beside the fire and called, "Come in." He was not greatly surprised to see Addam enter the room.

His friend crossed the room and flung himself down in the other fireside chair. He stretched out his booted feet towards the hearth and exclaimed, "Ah, that's better. I was beginning to think I would never feel dry or warm again after that hellish ride across the countryside."

"You've grown soft since you sold out," Jaime said, amused. "Time was, you rode for days in the rain and through the mud with even less in your saddlebag than you carried today."

"And with my batman travelling along behind with everything else I might need, unlike today," Addam grumbled. "No, I confess I don't miss it. It's been a year since my father died and I returned home, and I've been kept too busy to miss anything to do with army life—but particularly not the rain and mud. Not that you're likely to be experiencing much of that any more, either, since the peace. I imagine you'll be selling out too, before long?"

Napoleon had been a prisoner on the island of Elba since his abdication as Emperor of France in April, and the Treaty of Paris had been signed between France and the Sixth Coalition of European powers at the end of May, putting a formal end at last to the Peninsular War. For the first time in more than twenty years, Great Britain was at peace.

"Perhaps," said Jaime. In truth, he didn't want to sell his commission. The moment he did so, his father would find him a seat in Parliament to stand for, which he would, without question, win, and then his father would set about forging Jaime's political career in earnest. Jaime had no interest in politics, and never had done. But it wouldn't end there. Oh, no. The next thing he knew, his father would be looking around for just the right wife for him, one with the appropriate background and connections, and, moreover, one who knew just how to play the role of the perfect political hostess. It was not to be borne. As long as he kept his commission, his father's hands were tied. But the cavalry in peace time would be… what? Endless parades, and manoeuvres that would never be put into practice? That wouldn't be much of a life, either.

"Just perhaps?" asked Addam. "Your father's not going to like that."

"My father…" Jaime said tightly, and clamped his lips together to stop himself from finishing the sentence.

Taking the hint, Addam looked down at his boots, slowly drying out before the fire, and then back at Jaime. "Well, Jaime," he said, in a much lighter tone, "this is the devil of a fix you've landed us in, and no mistake. We're quite stuck here until the flood waters go down."

"I?" Jaime asked raising his eyebrows and feeling the familiar expression of aristocratic hauteur settle back onto his features. His father, no doubt, would be proud to see it there. "I merely suggested that we depart your hunting box for somewhere where we might find more congenial company, after four long days of either staring at your less than pretty face over the rim of a whisky glass or reading all six of the books that you keep in the library there."

"It's not my fault that it didn't stop raining from the moment we arrived there. A man can't hunt in rain like that, Jaime, you know that."

"So why are you complaining that I've brought us somewhere that will provide more diversions until the rain stops? I could just as easily have sent a message offering our regrets, as I'd originally intended."

"You told me that there would be young ladies present," Addam said.

"And so there are. We met one just after we arrived, if you'll recall," Jaime drawled.

"Miss Tarth? Rather too tall a young lady for my tastes, even if she were not so quiet or so very homely in appearance."

"Was she?" Jaime could remember very little of Miss Tarth apart from the pair of blue eyes that had seemed to stare past his careful defences and right into his soul.

"Lord, yes. Probably nice enough, in her way, but not what I'd call a diversion."

Jaime shrugged. "There are bound to be other young ladies to choose from."

"Not so many as you'd expect, old boy! I was talking to the footman they've assigned to take the place of my man while I'm stuck here, and he told me that many of the guests had not arrived. Presumably the rain has cut the roads or washed away the bridges and such and there was no way for them to get through—if they even bothered trying to brave all of that rain in the first place."

"So, who is here?" Jaime asked. "Or was the footman less forthcoming about that?"

"Oh, he was happy to chat—for a small commission." Addam winked. "Apparently, apart from us, and that Duchess who don't like you above half, and Miss Tarth, the main guests are the Dowager Duchess of the Reach, two of her grandchildren—only one of whom is a young lady—and Lord Renly Baratheon. It looks as if you and I will have to fight it out with Baratheon for the favour of Lady… Margaery, isn't it?"

"I don't think you'll have to worry about Renly as a rival," Jaime said dryly. "He's much more interested in the attentions of Lord Loras Tyrell than those of his sister Lady Margaery."

"Oh?" Addam said, a faintly puzzled look in his eyes. And then, as realisation dawned: "Oh! Like that, is it?"

"It is indeed, as you say, like that," Jaime replied. "Renly's elder brother, the Duke of the Stormlands, is married to my cousin Cersei. I've had occasion to meet Renly several times before. He and Lord Loras are rarely far from each other. Indeed, sometimes it seems almost impossible to prise them apart— _not_ that I have attempted it."

"I would hope not," Addam agreed. 

Silence fell between them. The rain fell steadily outside, sudden gusts of wind sending the rain beating against the windowpane from time to time, but the fire crackled on the hearth and the room was warm and snug. This was certainly a far cry from bedding down on the bare earth of a peasant's abandoned cottage with only a rag, and sometimes not even that, to stop the weather coming in through the window.

Jaime wished he were back in the peninsula right now. He shouldn't wish it, because it meant war and people losing their homes and families, people dying, his _men_ dying. And yet he did wish it. He didn't want to be here, at this house party, or in England at all. 

"So, are you planning to be my rival?" Addam asked.

Jaime blinked, trying to disentangle himself from his thoughts and work out what on earth Addam might be asking. "What?" he asked, less than politely, but then, this was Addam.

"Are you planning to be my rival for the favour of the fair Lady Margaery," Addam clarified. "At least, I presume she's a fair lady."

"She's the daughter of a duke, Addam," Jaime said with a smirk. "Of course she's considered fair, even if she's lacking in accomplishments and conversation, and horse-faced into the bargain—which Lady Margaery is not," he added, taking pity on Addam, whose eyes were widening in horror. "She was a taking little thing when she was a girl, and I believe she's grown into a great beauty with a lively manner. 'Fun', I think would be the best word to describe her. For a few days at a house party, in any event."

Addam heaved a sigh of relief, but he said, "You didn't answer my question. Are you going to be my rival?"

Jaime shrugged. "Perhaps. And perhaps not. We shall see."

"Damn you, Jaime," said Addam, with feeling. "You know that if you lift your little finger she'll come running and I won't get so much as a look in."

"Then you'd better hope that I don't lift my finger," said Jaime, with a mischievous smile.

Addam gave him a long, steady look and then got to his feet. "I think I'll leave you—and your finger—to contemplate the value of long-standing friendship, and go and find out if that footman has managed to make my evening clothes at least vaguely presentable."

Jaime stood as well. "Until dinner, then," he said.

"Until dinner. And may the best man win," Addam said.

Jaime bestowed a mock-salute on his friend and waited until Addam had quit the room. He went over to the casement window and looked out. If anything, it only looked more grey, wet and miserable outside than it had when they'd been out in the middle of it. The day was starting to close in on itself now, with what little illumination that managed to penetrate the heavy clouds growing dimmer as evening approached. 

Truth be told, while it was entertaining to keep Addam guessing, Jaime was not much interested in having anything at all to do with Lady Margaery Tyrell. He knew her type, and while it could be amusing to play her game for a time, he simply had not the inclination. Maybe he was growing old and crotchety, now that the war was over and he had too much time to think. That was what he told himself, anyway, even while he pretended not to hear the voice at the back of his mind whispering _Cersei_. 

Jaime flung himself down on the bed. No lady could hold a candle to his cousin Cersei. It was more than ten years since they had been forcibly parted. Cersei's father, his Uncle Kevan, had married her to Robert, while his own father had bought him a pair of colours and sent him off to fight the King's wars. He'd seen her only a bare handful of times from that day to this, and yet she remained his ideal. The old, weary cynical part of him knew that the real Cersei could not possibly live up to his memories of the perfect, golden girl she had been. And yet, he clung to the image of her and measured every young lady he met against it, and every young lady failed to measure up, or even come close.

He got up from the bed and prowled the room restlessly. There was little point in leaving the bedchamber to explore some of the house, even though he felt confined, like a lion in a cage. Soon, he would have to get ready for dinner, assuming that Smith ever returned with his evening clothes.

As if hearing his thoughts, the door opened and Smith appeared. He was carrying Jaime's evening coat on a hanger, and the rest of Jaime's evening clothes were carefully draped over one arm.

"I've got the damp out of everything, ser, and pressed everything that could be pressed," Smith said cheerfully. "Mr Wayn, the butler, begs to inform you that dinner will be served in half an hour's time and would you be pleased to gather with the other guests in the entrance hall before going in to dinner."

"Well, then, Smith, we have little time to lose. Let's see how you do in assisting me with my toilette," Jaime said, forcing himself to smile briefly at the boy, who hurried to set down his burdens on the bed.

Some twenty minutes later, Smith helped Jaime into his black, exquisitely cut swallow-tailed evening coat and Jaime turned to survey the results of his handiwork in the free-standing full length looking glass in the corner of the room. His coat had survived the indignity of riding all day through the rain in a saddlebag and looked none the worse for wear. His waistcoat of white watered silk was miraculously unblemished, while his black pantaloons still fitted him perfectly and looked almost as if they had been moulded to his legs. His snowy muslin neckcloth, arranged in neat, regular folds, was adorned with a simple gold pin, and a single fob hung at his waist.

He would do, Jaime decided. 

"That will be all for now," he told Smith.

"Yes, sir," Smith said, gathering up the additional three neckcloths—borrowed from the Duke, since the starch in Jaime's neckcloths had not survived the damp of the journey—that he had laid out in readiness, should Jaime not have been successful in arranging his neckcloth to his satisfaction on the first attempt.

Jaime descended the stairs into the great entrance hall. Addam, Lord Renly and Lord Loras had arrived before him and were gathered in front of the enormous fireplace at the far end of the hall. After the usual pleasantries of re-acquaintance had been exchanged, Jaime discovered from Lord Renly that they were to be twelve for dinner. The Duchess of the Riverlands' father, Lord Frey, had ridden over from the Twins, a few miles distant, that afternoon, and was now trapped with the rest of them at Riverrun. There was also the Duchess of the Northlands' companion, a Miss Poole, of whose existence Jaime had been entirely unaware until that moment. Some dried up old spinster, no doubt.

The ladies came down all together, in a small herd, or perhaps, if one were feeling unkind, a gaggle. The Dowager Duchess of the Reach came first, dressed in puce crape, a matching turban on her head and a delicate diamond necklace about her neck. Lady Margaery, her low-cut evening gown of a deep evening primrose silk and a matching primrose ribbon threaded through her hair setting off her colouring to advantage, hovered anxiously beside her grandmother as she took the stairs one slow step at a time. The Dowager adjured her granddaughter to stop fluttering and leave her be, for she had been ascending and descending stairs successfully for far longer than any of the rest of them had been alive. 

Behind them came the Duchess of the Northlands, resplendent in emerald green silk with a single emerald at her throat and matching emerald earbobs. Beside the Duchess was an unexpectedly pretty young thing with dark hair and eyes and creamy skin, in a gown of sprigged muslin with an ivory sash, who must be the companion, Miss Poole. 

At the rear came Miss Tarth, towering over the other ladies even more than usual, since she descended the stairs several steps behind them. She was wearing a gown of pomona green crape with a single strand of pearls clasped at her neck. The high waist of the current style served to emphasise her height, but the gown wasn't too bad, for all that it clearly came from the hands of a provincial seamstress rather than a fashionable London modiste. It was cut higher at the neck than was usual for an evening gown, and was almost completely free of trimming and Quakerishly plain, but the severe style suited Miss Tarth in a way that all the frills and furbelows in the world never would.

 _She would look far better in blue_ , Jaime thought, and then wondered at himself. He didn't want to look at her at all, not with those eyes of hers and all the unwelcome reminders they brought with them.

As the ladies reached the bottom of the stairs, Miss Tarth's eyes chanced to meet Jaime's. She immediately stiffened and her gaze became icy and hostile.

Jaime blinked, wondering what on earth he could have done to have offended her on so very short an acquaintance. It didn't seem possible that he had had time to do so. But of course it was much more likely that someone had been telling her the story of how he became the notorious Captain Jaime Lannister—as he then was, before his father had somehow finagled both a promotion and a knighthood for him—that day in Spain three years ago. Did she perhaps know that he'd been present when young Tarth died? Perhaps she blamed him as much as he blamed himself, in which case there was no need to wonder at her icy glare.

Their hostess entered the entrance hall from the dining room then, her husband and her father, Lord Frey, at her heels. The Duchess was somewhat overdressed. Her magnificent gown, of lilac spider gauze over white satin, trimmed with many flounces and brocaded satin ribbons, and set off by the famous Riverland diamond parure, was more suited to a grand London ball than a dinner in the country, even though that dinner took place at the residence of a duke. 

The Duchess would, inevitably, insist on strict order of precedence when going in to dinner, Jaime knew, and he took a swift glance around the company, working out how each of the guests ranked in relation to each other. Addam and Miss Poole, alone of all of those present, possessed neither title nor, he guessed, a near relative with a title, so, as the two guests of lowest rank they would go in to dinner together last. At the other end of things, the Dowager Duchess of the Reach, as the most senior duchess present, would go in on their host's arm at the head of the procession. They would be followed by their hostess on the arm of Lord Loras, who, as the eldest son and heir of a duke, was the highest ranking of the male guests. Then the Duchess of the Northlands would be taken in by Lord Frey, leaving Lady Margaery for Lord Renly and…

He glanced around and was not entirely surprised to find Miss Tarth's eyes on him. It was clear that she'd worked it out as well, and the look on her face was not happy.

Jaime felt the invisible mask he wore grow tighter, lifting his lips up into a mocking little smile. "Well, then, Miss Tarth," he said. "It looks very much as if you're going to have to endure a long evening with me, so we might as well get to know one another. You can start by telling me about Tarth."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • As the eldest son of a duke, Loras should be using one of his father's lesser titles as a courtesy title, but I've decided that there are already too many titles in this story, so Loras will just be styled Lord Loras, as a younger son would be.  
> • Cornet was the lowest commissioned rank in the British cavalry. The equivalent of an ensign or second lieutenant.  
> • To buy a pair of colours was to buy a commission in the army.  
> • The Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro was a real battle that took place there on 3-5 May 1811.


	3. The Dinner Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first formal dinner party at Riverrun gets underway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to Undun for looking over this chapter.

Jaime Lannister was waiting below by the fire as Brienne descended the stairs with the other ladies to assemble for dinner. He was looking up at the group of ladies, but he wasn't looking at Brienne, naturally. No doubt his attention had been caught by the sight of the beautiful and sweet-natured Lady Margaery Tyrell, and who could blame him? None of the other gentlemen were looking at Brienne, either, and for once the lack of notice made her feel almost comfortingly invisible. She could look where she chose, so long as she was careful to make her gaze seem as if she were looking down on the company in general, on the off-chance that someone did accidentally look her way. And for some unfathomable reason, Jaime Lannister was standing exactly where she chose to look. She was aware of the presence of the other gentlemen, in a vague sort of way, but somehow it was as though Ser Jaime were standing directly beneath a crystal chandelier with a hundred wax candles in it, while all the other gentlemen held only a single tallow candle each.

He was dressed very correctly for a dinner in the country, a picture of quiet elegance in black coat and pantaloons, with a white waistcoat and neatly arranged white cravat. It was nothing out of the ordinary. She'd seen any number of gentlemen dressed exactly like this for many dinners she'd attended. Indeed, all of the other gentlemen present tonight were dressed in very similar get-ups. And yet… if Jaime Lannister had looked ridiculously handsome this afternoon in mud-spattered riding clothes and hair damp from the rain, now the sight of him was devastating. Lethal. His coat was a perfect fit, emphasising the breadth of his shoulders, and his powerful thighs were displayed to advantage beneath the skin tight pantaloons. But his raiment was nothing to the look in his eyes, just for a moment, when his gaze shifted and he noticed her. Just for a moment, she could pretend to herself that she had drawn his eyes, that she was the object of that intensely focused look, for all the right reasons.

That was only just for a moment, though. A tiny fraction of a moment. As she reached the foot of the stairs, Brienne reminded herself sternly of the humiliation he'd caused her, oh so casually and ostensibly politely, when they'd been introduced, and that stiffened her spine and froze her gaze as she looked back.

She turned away, to make it clear to Ser Jaime that she had not forgiven him, and found herself looking straight at Lord Renly. She realised, with a shock, that she hadn't even noticed that he was numbered amongst the gentlemen already assembled in the great entrance hall. He smiled at her, in that charming, _kind_ way of his, and Brienne couldn't help but smile back. Perhaps Lord Renly would take her in to dinner tonight, she thought, remembering for the thousandth time the way her heart had leapt when he had escorted her in to supper at her come-out ball all those years ago. They'd met, briefly, for the first time since then this afternoon, not long before Brienne went upstairs to dress for dinner. There had been no opportunity for much more than for them to make their bows to each other, since Brienne was also presented to the Dowager Duchess of the Reach and her grandchildren. If Lord Renly were seated beside her at dinner, they would have the chance for at least a little conversation.

This was not like most of the dinners that Brienne had attended, though, where the guests were generally of similar rank and so the hostess would arrange the dinner procession to suit the wishes of the guests as much as possible—or, sometimes, the wishes of various match-making mamas. Brienne had been a victim of such machinations a time or two, for of course she was never considered a prize to be seated next to, be she daughter of a viscount or not. Here, with so many people of consequence present, the order of precedence would determine who would be partnered with whom at dinner. In her two days at Riverrun, Brienne had learned that her hostess was a stickler when it came to such considerations.

She glanced surreptitiously at those present, mentally arranging dukes and earls, older and younger sons, duchesses and daughters of peers… and she went cold, as she realised exactly where the order of precedence placed both her and Ser Jaime.

As if she'd spoken aloud, Ser Jaime chose that moment to turn around, and when he saw her standing there he smiled, a rather unpleasant little smile. Clearly, he'd been working out the order of precedence as well and was as little pleased about the conclusion he had reached as she herself.

It was ridiculous to feel disappointed. He might be pleasing to the eye, but she didn't _like_ this man. What did it matter if he thought so little of her?

"Well, then, Miss Tarth," he said, taking a step towards her. "It looks very much as if you're going to have to endure a long evening with me, so we might as well get to know one another. You can start by telling me about Tarth."

"Tarth?" Brienne asked levelly. At least, she hoped her voice was level. "It is an island, Ser Jaime, off the Norfolk coast. They call it the sapphire isle, because of the deep blue waters that surround it."

"Indeed," said Ser Jaime, in a tone feigning surprise at the news of even the existence of the island of Tarth. "You shock me." However, he was saved from having to contribute anything more to the conversation when the butler entered the room and announced:

"Dinner, your grace, is served."

And then, with some assistance from their hostess, and not so very much confusion, the guests arranged themselves into pairs, each lady took the arm of her gentleman, and they proceeded in to dinner.

Brienne was very aware of Ser Jaime's steady arm beneath her gloved fingers, aware of the height of him beside her, as they walked across the great hall and into the dining room. He wasn't quite as tall as she, but close enough that for once she did not feel out of balance when being escorted by a gentleman. In this dress with its narrow skirt she could not stride about as she liked to do in her breeches when she was at home on Tarth, but Ser Jaime took care to match his stride to hers. Their short promenade was… harmonious, somehow. It was an odd sensation to… to _fit_ with someone, if only for the time it took to walk the length of the great entrance hall.

All thought of her companion was driven from Brienne's mind as they entered the dining room. Riverrun had two dining rooms: a smaller one, for everyday use when it was mostly just the family in residence—though it was still big enough to comfortably seat twenty people—and this larger dining room for formal occasions, though 'larger' was an understatement. It was quite simply the most enormous room designated as a dining room that Brienne had ever been in. She had seen it in the daylight, yesterday, when the Duchess of the Northlands had taken her on a tour of the house, but now, with the shadows gathering where the candlelight and firelight did not reach, the room was somehow more grand, more forbidding, more remote from the reality of a woman like Brienne, who would never so much as pretend at being a great lady for more than a few days, than ever.

As in the great entrance hall, the lavishly decorated ceiling soared high above them. Directly beneath it was a windowed gallery, the glass in the windows stained different colours so as to be almost like a church. In the daytime, when it wasn't raining, the windows reflected many-coloured light down into the room below, or so the Duchess had told Brienne. The walls beneath the gallery were almost completely covered by massive artworks, depicting mostly battlefield scenes in which, Brienne guessed, various dukes of the Riverlands had taken part in past centuries. Each huge painting was contained in a gilded frame carved to an elaborate design, and the two doorways at either end of the room were constructed of what looked to be gilded marble. The message that the room conveyed about the wealth and power of its owner was not subtle.

For all that it was opulent and imposing, however, the great dining room wasn't very practical. There was a roaring fire in the marble fireplace, but it did not banish the chill in the air. The dining table itself, though wide as well as long, groaned with decorations. There were arrangements of fruit and flowers, and heavy silver candelabra, from one end of the table to the other, and right in the centre stood a monstrously large, and monstrously ugly, silver epergne, its main bowl piled high with fruit, a pineapple at the very centre. In design, the epergne was probably meant to be an interpretation of the Tully coat of arms, because it included several trout rendered in hammered silver, placed around the edge at intervals as if leaping out of the central bowl. Also attached to the sides of the bowl, interspersed with the trout, was a series of fluted silver candleholders, each holding a single wax candle, which served more to obscure the guests seated opposite than to provide much in the way of illumination to the table.

"Good God, I thought we'd lost that thing years ago," Brienne heard a voice mutter. She couldn't be sure, but she was almost positive it was the Duke.

Brienne let her hand slip from Ser Jaime's arm as the guests found their places at the table. Ser Jaime was seated to her left, but it was only as she was removing her gloves and placing them in her lap that the gentleman on her right took his place, and she realised she was also seated next to Lord Renly.

Lord Renly smiled. "We meet again, Miss Tarth."

"Yes," she said, immediately wishing she could have thought of something more witty to say. But the moment was already past. Etiquette required that a gentleman converse with the lady on his right until the first course was brought in. Lord Renly, always the perfect gentleman, sent her another small smile and then turned to talk to Lady Margaery.

"I believe you were telling me about Tarth, Miss Tarth," said Ser Jaime from her other side.

Brienne had no choice but to turn her attention to him. That small, mocking smile was on his lips again. 'I don't want to talk to you or know about you', the smile seemed to say, 'but here we are anyway.'

" _I_ believe I've already told you about Tarth, Ser Jaime. Perhaps you could tell me a little of your home," Brienne said, in the sort of very level voice she used when confronted with some small domestic crisis at home in Evenfall Hall.

"Casterly Rock? Huge and imposing and an utter hodgepodge sums it up quite well. It's part medieval castle, part Palladian mansion, plus at least a little of every style of architecture in between. It's clear that too many of my ancestors had more money than sense." Ser Jaime seemed not to have taken exception to her brisk tone. His eyes laughed as he spoke, an expression that Brienne was already all too familiar with, but for the first time since she had met him, she felt that he was reaching out to include her in his amusement, rather than mocking her.

His smile was infectious, and, against her better judgement, she let the hint of a smile touch the corners of her mouth. "Your uncle is the Duke, and yet you grew up there?"

As soon as the words left her lips, Brienne wondered if she should have asked the question, but he answered easily, "Oh, yes. My mother died not long after my brother was born, and my uncle also had recently become a widower. He urged my father to move back to the Rock, and then Tyrion and I and our cousins all grew up together there."

"And your brother? Where is he now?" It seemed a safe enough question. Ser Jaime had insisted on being introduced this afternoon as his father's eldest son, so his brother must still live.

"He's up at Oxford. Life at a university college seems to agree with him," Ser Jaime said a trifle dryly, suggesting that it wasn't just his studies that agreed with his brother, but that same warmth remained in his eyes. He felt affection for his brother, then. It wasn't something Brienne had expected of him. "And your father, Miss Tarth? I don't believe I have ever met him."

"No, he rarely leaves Tarth. I don't think he has travelled further than Storm's End since my mother died when I was very young. He certainly has not been to London for as long as I can remember."

Brienne steeled herself, waiting for the inevitable question about brothers or sisters, but just then the footmen came in with the soup, and saved her. Her eyes were on the footman nearest them for a moment, but when she glanced back she surprised an expression on Ser Jaime's face that looked very like relief. She bristled. So it was a chore for him to be forced to make even so little conversation as this with such a _singular_ young lady as herself, was it? Fuming, she applied herself to the bowl of soup in front of her and resolved not to let a false, engaging manner take her in again.

The soup was a white Potage a la Reine, and it was just the start of the most sumptuous repast Brienne had ever enjoyed, a fitting meal for the room in which it was served. The soup was removed with fillets of turbot in a cream sauce, and there were also stewed partridges, lobster with a Dutch sauce, a mushroom dish, a white chicken fricassee, and a fine red mullet with Cardinal sauce. And that was just the first course.

There was not much opportunity to talk again until the table was being cleared of the first course. Brienne sipped her champagne as the claret was served to the gentlemen, and became aware of Lord Renly leaning to one side in his chair and attempting to peer around one end of the epergne without being obvious about it. In this he failed, for Lady Margaery was watching him as well with some little amusement. Ser Jaime had also leaned back in his chair, ostensibly to keep out of the footman's way as he replaced Ser Jaime's table setting, but he sipped his wine and darted glances behind Brienne's chair at Lord Renly.

After several moments had gone by, Lord Loras's head craned around the end of the epergne on the other side of the table. Smiling, Lord Renly sent Lord Loras a long look and raised his glass. Lord Loras raised his glass back at Lord Renly, in the time-honoured custom of 'taking wine' together. Their eyes stayed on one another for several more seconds, and then the moment was past.

"Baratheon." It was Ser Jaime's voice. Glancing at him, Brienne discovered that he had raised his glass to Lord Renly. "Will you not take wine with me, too?” Ser Jaime asked.

It was a simple question, and yet it was laden with undercurrents that Brienne did not understand. There was clearly some history between the two men.

"Of course, Lannister," Lord Renly replied, and raised his glass, but the look the two gentlemen exchanged was very different from the one Lord Renly had just shared with Lord Loras.

"Tell me, Ser Jaime," Brienne said, surprising herself by intervening to break the suddenly tense atmosphere on this side of the table, "to which regiment do you belong? All I know is that you are a major." _Always ask a gentleman about himself_. That had been the first, and only, lesson in the art of dinner table conversation that one of her father's many _ladies_ had managed to instil in her.

Ser Jaime's expression did not change as his gaze moved from Lord Renly to Brienne. "I am a major in His Majesty's First Regiment of Dragoons," he bit out, as though provoked beyond all reason.

Brienne felt the colour drain from her face. Ser Jaime and her brother Galladon had been in the same regiment! She took a deep draught of champagne and almost choked.

"Miss Tarth!" Lord Renly was all concern.

"I'm fine," Brienne gasped out. She reached for her napkin and held it to her lips, and after a few coughs that she tried to suppress as much as possible, she swallowed hard and set the napkin down again. "Thank you for your concern, Lord Renly, but, as you can see, I am quite all right," she added once she could speak properly again. "You must both think my reaction very odd," she said, looking first at Ser Jaime and then back at Lord Renly. "I should explain that I once had a very dear brother, my only brother, who was in the First Dragoons. He… he died three years ago, in Spain. I wonder, do you remember him at all, Ser Jaime?" she asked, turning back to address him. "His name was Tarth, of course. Galladon Tarth."

"I'm sure I would remember a name like that," Ser Jaime said after a moment. He looked rather pale himself.

"Ah." Brienne looked down at her lap for a moment. "He was only in the cavalry for a very short time. He was… he fell in the very first battle in which he took part, so it is not so surprising that you don't remember him. It's just that I've never met anyone who served with him. His colonel died in the same engagement, so it was the general who wrote to my father, and of course the general didn't know Galladon."

"I am very sorry indeed to hear of the loss of your brother, Miss Tarth." It was Lord Renly who spoke. Of course it was. Was there ever a more perfect gentleman?

From the other side of him, Lady Margaery sent her a sympathetic look. "And I," she said.

“Thank you,” Brienne said. What else could she say? All of it was simply words. Just wind that would be here one moment and gone the next. Nothing she or anyone else said would bring Galladon back.

Ser Jaime was looking down at his hands when Brienne turned away from Lord Renly. They did not speak another word until the footmen started bringing in the second course a minute or two later.

The second course consisted of even more dishes than the first, with a dizzying number of removes. Brienne took a little of the raised goose pie, and then Ser Jaime, displaying an expertise that she sadly could not fault, carved some slices from the saddle of beef for her. The roast duckling was closest to Lord Renly and he was pleased to carve meat from the breast for both Lady Margaery and Brienne. He hacked at it a little, but then it was much smaller and more difficult to hold still with the carving fork than the beef. There was also a stuffed serpent of mutton with carrots and turnips, an Italian salad, a boiled leg of lamb with spinach, buttered asparagus and peas, a glazed ham, plovers' eggs in jelly, and several sauce-boats as well as French and English mustard, not to mention a basket of pastries and an apple pie to round things out—and who knew what else beyond the barrier that ran down the middle of the table.

Brienne was careful to eat only a little of each of the dishes that she tried, and knew better than to attempt to eat some of everything, but she was still feeling uncomfortably full by the time the table was cleared of the remains of the second course.

"Feeling well fed, Miss Tarth?" Ser Jaime murmured. His voice was low, but not so low that Brienne could pretend she hadn't heard.

"Yes indeed, Ser Jaime. I take it that usually you do not see so many dishes when you are on campaign?"

"I don't usually see _half_ so many dishes when I visit my uncle the Duke at Casterly Rock."

There was laughter in his eyes, which Brienne did not share, but nor did she look away quite as soon as she intended. It would be so very easy to let those eyes of his draw her in, and then she would leave herself open and vulnerable when he turned on her, as he inevitably would.

It was obvious even to Brienne that the Duchess of the Riverlands was trying much too hard to impress. She clearly wished to remind everyone that she was a duchess now, the mistress of one of the grandest houses in all of England, rather than just one of the many, many daughters of an impoverished peer. Brienne would have felt sorry for the Duchess, had she not overheard her talking to her husband the Duke this afternoon, and discovered what her opinion was of Brienne. The Duchess did not need Brienne's pity or even her sympathy. She had clearly never heard of such a thing as restraint—or, perhaps, her life had been nothing but restraint before she married the Duke—and, even more clearly, the very opposite of restraint was her aim now.

Brienne looked forward to the serving of the sweet course. It would herald the end of the meal. That was, she looked forward to the sweet course until it was brought in. Of course the Duchess had not stinted with this last course, either. There were more cakes than Brienne could name, and sweetmeats of every kind imaginable, as well as stewed plums, poached pears in a sweet wine sauce, meringues à la crème, several dishes of walnuts, and, most extravagant of all, a pineapple cream. Brienne had never seen a pineapple except as a centrepiece. It seemed a great excess to actually eat such an expensive and difficult to grow fruit, but it was all of a piece with the rest of this… memorable dinner. She took a little, and quite liked the taste, tart yet sweet, but thought it not worth the fuss that was made of it.

Brienne and Ser Jaime had not talked much throughout the main course and the dessert, but then neither had anyone else at the table. It was as though the mountain of food set before them had robbed them all of speech. She eyed him surreptitiously now as she set down her spoon and fork, finished with this meal at last. His profile looked as if it had been sculpted in marble, like something from Ancient Greece or Rome, save that there was the slightest hint of golden stubble glinting along his jawline in the candlelight. His hair looked darker, the gold highlights lighter, than it had in daylight, but with the faintest suggestion of red about it thanks to the light from the fire. And his eyes…

His eyes were looking at her. He quirked one eyebrow in a silent question, and Brienne hastily looked away, her face growing hot.

"May I be of service to you, Miss Tarth?" Ser Jaime asked. It was a perfectly polite and gentleman-like question, except that it was not.

Unwillingly, Brienne turned to look at him, glowering. His eyes were laughing again. At her, again.

"I didn't mean to give offence, Miss Tarth. Forgive me." He did not sound at all contrite.

"I don't care what you meant," she hissed, finally goaded beyond what was polite and ladylike. She'd never been any good at behaving like a proper lady, anyway. It was amazing she'd lasted this long since arriving at Riverrun.

He raised both eyebrows. "Well, well, well. It appears that there is more to the very proper Miss Tarth than meets the eye, after all."

His lips quirked into a smirk as she kept her hostile gaze on him, not deigning to respond.

At that moment, the other ladies and gentlemen rose from their seats, and Brienne realised with a start that the Duchess must have given the signal for the ladies to withdraw. She scrambled to her feet, snatching up her gloves from her lap, while Ser Jaime got up in a single, graceful movement. He inclined his head to her, that provoking smile still playing about his lips, as Brienne swept away, head held high and trying to convey the impression of queenly dignity. In this she would have succeeded rather better had she not almost tripped on her skirt because she was not properly looking where she was going. Lady Margaery, beside her, had the presence of mind to take hold of Brienne's arm, preventing her from falling flat on her face. It was with relief that Brienne gained the far door, while behind her in the dining room, the covers were removed, the gentleman gathered at one end of the table, and sat down to port and masculine conversation.

The drawing room was very much a female domain, the welcoming heart of the house. Or, at least, it should have been. The Duchess of the Riverlands' drawing room, however, was not comfortable or homey. It was… stylish. The Egyptian style, to be exact. And the Classical style as well. Sofas with legs carved to resemble those of crocodiles sat side by side with lyre-backed armchairs, while marble-inlaid end tables and occasional tables with scrolled borders gave way to a chaise longue with golden legs like a lion.

"What an interesting looking room," the Dowager Duchess of the Reach observed, as her granddaughter helped her over to an armchair that looked more like something that Cleopatra might have sat on than a piece of furniture to be found in an English nobleman's residence.

"I chose the decorations myself, Duchess," the Duchess of the Riverlands said, preening just a little. "Do you like it?"

"I've never seen a room quite like it before," the Dowager Duchess replied.

"Duchess," the Duchess of the Northlands began, and both the other duchesses turned to look at her. "Oh, this won't do at all," she said, sounding a trifle irritated. "There are far too many duchesses present at this house party."

"Are you perhaps suggesting that we use our Christian names instead?" the Dowager Duchess asked, though Brienne was almost certain that she only said it for the reaction that she knew she would elicit from the Duchess of the Riverlands.

The Duchess of the Riverlands looked horrified. "I would never countenance such lax behaviour in my house, Duchess," she said coldly.

"No, of course I'm not suggesting any such familiarity," the Duchess of the Northlands said. "I just thought I might use one of my other titles for the duration of my stay here. In the North, I am generally known as Lady Stark."

Lady Margaery, taking a seat beside Brienne on one of the crocodile-legged sofas, frowned very slightly, a delicate expression that in no way detracted from the image of perfection presented by her smooth countenance, rosebud lips and heart-shaped face. "But why would you habitually use a lesser title if you are a duchess, ma'am?" she asked.

"In the North, there is no name that is held in greater respect than the Stark of Winterfell. The dukedom is of much more recent creation and held to be simply something that is needful when dealing with southerners—no disrespect intended."

"And none taken, I'm sure," the Duchess of the Riverlands sniffed.

The Duchess of the Northlands—Lady Stark—smiled. "There has been a Lord Stark in Winterfell since long before the Norman conquest. The dukedom, on the other hand, is a mere hundred and fifty years old."

"Hmmph. I'm sure I don't care, and as you say, it will make things a mite easier when talking amongst ourselves," said the Dowager Duchess, whose own family's dukedom was a bare handful of years older than that of the Starks—the difference being that the Tyrells had been mere baronets before that date. They had not even been entitled to sit in the House of Lords until their service to Charles II during the Interregnum, and afterwards during the Restoration, had resulted in the creation of the title of Duke of the Reach.

Brienne reached for her needlework bag, which had been left on the table next to the sofa. The light in here wasn't bright enough to properly tell how she was setting her stitches, but since she couldn't stitch in a straight line at the best of times, it hardly mattered. She needed something to keep her occupied while the conversation of the other ladies swirled about her.

"Miss Tarth." It was Lady Margaery's voice, low and beautifully modulated. "Lord Renly tells me that you and he have met before."

"That's true," Brienne said, aware that she sounded as if she begrudged Lady Margaery every word she uttered. She set her needlework down in her lap with a sigh. "It was only once, years ago, but… He is a great gentleman," she finished.

Lady Margaery smiled. Even her smile was perfect, now, when there were no gentlemen present and she spoke only to a lady who looked like Brienne. "He is indeed." She was silent a moment, looking over at her grandmother, and then back at Brienne. "I hope you and I can be friends, Miss Tarth."

Brienne felt a pang of irritation. Was Lady Margaery incapable of being unpleasant? It would be so very much easier to dislike her if she was. She glanced over at the ormolu clock on the chimneypiece. Only five minutes had passed since the ladies had left the dining room. The gentlemen would no doubt be occupied with their port for the best part of an hour before they joined the ladies in the drawing room.

"I hope we can be friends too, Lady Margaery," Brienne replied.

It was going to be a very long evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Removes.  
> In the early part of the 19th Century, dinner was served in the French style, which meant that all the dishes of each course were brought in together and placed on the table for the guests to help themselves, with the gentlemen doing the carving of the meat dishes. Any good hostess would ensure to provide more dishes than would fit on the table at any one time, so once the guests were done with a dish, it would be removed and sometimes replaced with a different dish. Replacing the dish in this way was known as a 'remove'.  
> • Later in the century, serving in the Russian style came into vogue, which meant the footmen carried each dish around the table and served each guest in turn. You see this type of service in the dinner scenes in Downton Abbey.  
> • The Interregnum was the period between the execution of King Charles I in 1649, during the English Civil War, and the return to London from exile in Europe of his son Charles II in 1660, following the death of Oliver Cromwell. The period after this date was known as the Restoration (ie. the restoration of the monarchy).


	4. Performances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the first evening.

Jaime was assailed by an odd mix of emotions as he watched the ladies—and one lady in particular—depart the dining room. Relief was chief amongst them, and also the ever-present guilt that was only magnified by the sight of a pair of arresting blue eyes. Curiosity was part of it, too. Miss Tarth was no beauty. Her looks were not even what might be called pretty in the most charitable of senses. She was tall and plain, her skin freckled and her teeth crooked, her nose and mouth too large and her hair pale and straw-like. And yet...

She was not at all what she seemed at first glance, or even at second glance, of that much Jaime was certain, after sitting through that ghastly dinner with her. Of the three young ladies present at the house party, Miss Poole was quiet and shy, a country mouse, if a pretty one, while Lady Margaery was beautiful and accomplished and assured, but Miss Tarth was something else again. _Not_ an ape leader, not yet, for all that she was several years older than the other young ladies. Jaime had met scores of Miss Pooles in his time, and even more rich, titled young ladies not so very different from Lady Margaery, but he was already certain that there was only one Miss Tarth.

He did not wish to see her again; the memory of her brother lay between them. One day, perhaps soon, she would discover that he knew better than anyone how Galladon Tarth had died. He did not relish the likely conversation that would ensue. And yet he wished to see her again, too. She was the only interesting guest at this dreadful house party—and she rose to his bait so very easily, like a great, blue-eyed fish. But then, fishing was one of the pastimes one indulged in when staying in the country, was it not?

The crystal port decanter reached him then. As he poured himself a glass, he noticed the Duke's father-in-law, Lord Frey, watching him from across the table. The ninth Earl Frey was a small, balding elderly gentleman with a receding chin and a face like a rat, or possibly a weasel. His features perfectly suited his nature, from anything Jaime had ever heard of him. Jaime took a sip of port, carefully looking at nothing in particular but keeping watch on what was happening on the other side of the table out of the corner of his eye. Lord Frey bit off the end of a cigar, spat the discarded cap onto the tabletop, lit the cigar and drew on it, and puffed out a perfect smoke ring. And then another.

"Do that, can you, Kingslayer?" the old man cackled.

Jaime went very still. "What did you just call me, Lord Frey? I think I must have misheard," he said silkily.

Something in Jaime's tone must have penetrated the buzz of conversation at the table because Addam, who was sitting next to him but talking to Lord Loras on his other side, turned immediately to look at Jaime. Addam took in the situation at a glance, the tension in Jaime's shoulders and the nasty little smirk on Lord Frey's lips.

"A misunderstanding, I'm sure. Was it not, Lord Frey?" Addam asked, and the steel in his voice did not belong to the wealthy country gentleman of leisure he now was, but to Captain Addam Marbrand, an officer in His Majesty's cavalry and a veteran of the Peninsular War.

There was complete silence around the table.

The smirk disappeared from Lord Frey's lips and his rheumy eyes narrowed. "I merely asked if Ser Jaime could blow smoke rings, but perhaps he does not smoke. My mistake," he said, and reached for the port decanter. He poured himself another glass of port—he had already finished his first—and then turned to speak to the Duke.

The conversation around the table started up again, if somewhat more subdued than it had been before.

Lord Renly, sitting across from Lord Loras, cut and lit a cigar and then, with some little difficulty, lit another cigar with the burning end of the first, and handed it over to Lord Loras. They drew in and then expelled the smoke in unison, and shared a warm… look across the table. 

Jaime looked down into his glass. He did not care what the two of them got up to together in private, he truly did not. More than one brave man of his acquaintance had been known to seek out not the female camp followers but their male counterparts, when his blood was up and his mind reeling following the heat and horror of battle. It was no business of Jaime's. But he did care that Lord Renly chose not to hide his particular preference for Lord Loras's company. Not when it appeared that he might be courting Lord Loras's sister, which, if he were a man of honour, he would not be even considering.

Lord Loras would have to marry at some point. As an only son, he had a duty to his name, and to his father's dukedom. Lord Renly, on the other hand, had two older brothers, plus a nephew, to carry on the Baratheon name and provide heirs for the title. He did not need to marry if he did not wish to. And, more particularly, he should not be thinking of offering marriage to any lady when his heart was already taken. 

It was one thing to keep a mistress—or the male equivalent—but quite another to give one's heart to someone one could never marry. It was grossly unfair to any unsuspecting young lady to whom one might be persuaded, by well-meaning friends and relations, to propose marriage, when already knowing that she would never come first with her prospective husband. It was precisely for that reason that Jaime had determined never to marry. Not until he found a lady who outshone Cersei in his heart, in any event, and since such a lady did not exist, Jaime would forever remain a bachelor.

In the end, the gentlemen did not spend overlong at their port. Before much more than half an hour had passed, cigars were extinguished and glasses drained, and the gentlemen rose and made their way into the drawing room to join the ladies.

The drawing room proved to be recently, if hideously, decorated in a mishmash of the Classical and Egyptian styles, which were currently all the crack in London. The Duke and Lord Frey took the last remaining vacant sofa, while chairs were brought from the other side of the room for the younger gentlemen. Their hostess rang for tea.

"I wonder if we might have some music, Duchess, since we have some accomplished young ladies present," Addam suggested. 

"Are young ladies ever anything _but_ accomplished?" Jaime enquired, _sotto voce_. Addam, who was sitting to his left, ignored this, but Miss Tarth, who was seated on the sofa not far to his right, shot him a hard look.

Not for the first time, Jaime wondered just what he might have said or done to offend her.

To Jaime's surprise, Addam looked then to Miss Poole, who was perched demurely beside the Duchess of the Northlands on one of the sofas. "Would you, perhaps, favour us with a song, Miss Poole?" he asked. Apparently, it had not been such a hardship for Addam to be seated next to Miss Poole at dinner, for all that only hours ago he had been intent on winning Lady Margaery's favour.

Miss Poole flushed becomingly, just a little stain of pink added to her cheeks to give her some colour. Then, at the Duchess of the Northlands' nod, she went over to the pianoforte and flipped through the pile of sheet music waiting there. Having made her choice, she sat down, opened the instrument and prepared to play.

Addam got to his feet. "I believe I'll turn the pages for Miss Poole," he said, and did just that.

The piece Miss Poole had chosen was an old country air. It was not a terribly difficult—or interesting—piece of music, but she sang the words that went with it in a clear, sweet voice, and if her playing was hardly inspired, at least she did not hit a wrong note.

Once she reached the end, Miss Poole got up and curtseyed, flushing again at the applause she received, and returned to her seat—escorted by Addam, Jaime did not fail to note.

The other two young ladies were seated side by side on the sofa nearest Jaime, sipping the tea that had arrived halfway through Miss Poole's performance, and now the rest of the company looked to them. Lady Margaery basked in the attention, like a flower turning towards the sun, but Miss Tarth hunched up, like a hedgehog trying both to hide and to ward off attack.

"Lady Margaery, if you would?" Lord Renly asked. 

Lady Margaery needed no further prompting. "Very well," she said, and rose from her seat. 

Miss Tarth sighed with relief, and unfolded herself a little.

"I'll turn the pages for you," Lord Renly said, already half out of his seat.

"Oh, there's no need, Lord Renly, though thank you very much for offering. I intend to play from memory."

And so she did. Jaime found himself more than a little impressed with Lady Margaery's performance—and not just her playing and singing. She had an assured touch, and though she made the occasional mistake, the way the music seemed to flow from her fingers onto the keys, and the animation with which she sang, more than made up for it. But by far the most interesting aspect of the whole thing, at least for Jaime, was her choice of song. It was a well-known piece, Voi che Sapete, or Tell Me What Love Is, from Mozart's opera 'The Marriage of Figaro', and Lady Margaery sang it very specifically to Lord Renly. Oh, she didn't make it really obvious, but she glanced up over the top of the piano at the end of every second or third phrase, and each time her gaze just happened to light on Lord Renly. The sentiments expressed in the song were perhaps not entirely proper for an unmarried young lady to be singing, but she sang it in the original Italian, at least, which made it less obvious. Still, a lesser young lady would not have been allowed to get away with it. It was just as well that Lady Margaery was Lady Margaery.

The applause this time was much more enthusiastic than it had been for Miss Poole, with even a few cries of "More!" Lady Margaery curtseyed, turning a mischievous smile on the company at large that eventually came to rest on Lord Renly.

Lord Renly smiled back, looking a trifle bemused. Did Lady Margaery know of the nature of the attachment between Lord Renly and her brother? Surely not, and yet… There was something about the way she smiled at Lord Renly, as though her lips hid a shared secret.

Miss Tarth also watched Lord Renly, though she looked over the rim of her teacup every now and then, in what she clearly thought was a subtle manner. Jaime wondered what that was all about.

"Yes, my dear, you sing very nicely, but sit down again, there's a good girl," said her grandmother. "It's Miss Tarth's turn now." She turned in her chair to bestow a look that would brook no denial on Miss Tarth.

"I'm really not-" Miss Tarth began. "The other young ladies-"

"Have had their turn, and now we would like to hear you play, Miss Tarth," the Dowager said. "Come on now, don't keep us waiting. These old bones of mine are very nearly ready for their bed."

"Very well," said Miss Tarth, setting down her teacup on the end table beside her. She got to her feet, looking very like an officer leading a Forlorn Hope in battle. She did not expect to return alive. 

"And Loras will turn the pages for you, won't you, Loras?" the Dowager asked, though it was more of a command.

"Of course, Grandmama," Lord Loras said, and got languidly to his feet. He followed Miss Tarth over to the pianoforte. 

Well, well, well. That was an interesting development, Jaime thought.

Miss Tarth looked through the selection of sheet music, the expression on her face saying that she hoped to find a particular piece of music there—or perhaps that she hoped to find nothing there that she knew, and so could have reason to beg off. Eventually, though, she selected a piece and placed it on the music rack above the keys. 

"I don't sing," Miss Tarth informed them. "Believe me, you would thank me for not singing if you had ever heard me try." This elicited at slight scattering of—mostly—warm laughter from her audience. "However, I do play a little, and so tonight I will perform for you all the first movement of a piano sonata by Herr Beethoven."

Her playing was uncertain to begin with, as she hit more than one wrong note, but after a little while Miss Tarth found the rhythm in the bass section and her left hand provided the anchor that her right required to supply the melody. It was a well-known piece of music, soft and slow, to the point of being almost like a dirge, and not particularly difficult to play. After the sweet old country song sung by Miss Poole, and the lively performance by Lady Margaery, Miss Tarth's piece slowed everything down and drained the high spirits from even Lady Margaery. The only relief was provided by the rustle of paper as Lord Loras leaned forward to turn the page. Before Miss Tarth was halfway through, the mood in the room had turned sombre, and it stayed that way. No more than five or six minutes could have passed by the time she played the solemn closing chords, and yet it seemed far longer. Everyone applauded, if only in relief, but this time no one asked for more.

Jaime kept an eye on Miss Tarth as she returned to her seat, and he was surprised to see what looked like a very tiny smile on her lips. Yes, it didn't just look like it, it _was_ a tiny smile, and a self-satisfied one, at that. She had made her choice very carefully, he realised: a piece of music that was not beyond her limited talents to play at least competently, one that would be over and done with quickly, and that was so lacking in spirit that it would not encourage anyone to ask her to keep playing.

"Brava," he whispered as she resumed her seat.

She didn't look at him until she'd taken a sip of her tea and set the cup and saucer down again. "I'm sorry, Ser Jaime?" she asked. "I don't believe I heard you."

"You heard me," he said with certainty. "And you know why I said it."

"I don't know what goes on in your head, and I find that I'm quite glad of my ignorance," she said, but that tiny smile was on her lips again, and gave the lie to her words.

He found himself smiling at her, then, without entirely knowing why. For a moment, it was as if silence had descended, and the rest of the room had faded away, leaving only the two of them. Then Miss Tarth looked away and reached for her tea, and reality crowded back in around them again.

"Well, my dear, thank you for a most interesting evening, but now I must find my bed," the Dowager Duchess was saying to the Duchess of the Riverlands. She got slowly to her feet. In an instant, Lady Margaery was at her side, and Lord Loras stirred himself and followed his sister unhurriedly.

"I will see Miss Poole to bed," the Duchess of the Northlands said, standing as well. "She is not used to staying up so late, still."

Miss Poole went pink at that. She could only have been seventeen, eighteen at most, Jaime supposed, and no one of that age liked to be reminded that they were still hardly more than a child.

"I will accompany Miss Poole, Lady Stark, if you do not yet wish to retire." That was Miss Tarth.

"Thank you, my dear. Why don't we go up together?" The Duchess—or was she to be Lady Stark now?—said. As if answering his thoughts, the Duchess then addressed the room at large: "I should explain to the gentlemen that since we have such a surfeit of duchesses present, I have decided to use one of my husband's other titles for the rest of my stay here. So please do address me as Lady Stark from now on."

There was a murmur of assent to this, and after that the company quickly dispersed. The Duke suggested that he and the other gentleman retire to the library for some cognac, but Jaime replied with perfect truth that he was tired after the long day's journey and required nothing more than his bed until the morrow.

He reached the foot of the stairs just as the ladies were nearing the top. He watched as two gowns of very different green disappeared from sight. It was going to be an interesting few days, to borrow the Dowager Duchess's favourite word.

Smith was waiting for him when he returned to his bedchamber. He helped Jaime out of his evening coat, and then followed him around the room, deftly retrieving each garment as it was discarded. As Smith hurried off into the small adjoining dressing room with his evening clothes, Jaime relieved himself in the chamberpot and got into his night clothes. He stood in front of the washstand to clean his teeth with tooth powder and a boar bristle brush expressly designed for that purpose, and without further ado got into bed.

"Will there be anything else tonight, ser?" Smith asked once he had returned from the dressing room and replaced the chamberpot.

"No, nothing more," Jaime said. 

"Very good, ser," Smith replied. He made a circuit of the room, extinguishing each candle in turn until the only the only one remaining was the candle beside Jaime's bed.

"Good night, Smith," Jaime said.

"Good night, ser," Smith replied. And then, with a little nod, he was gone.

Jaime closed his eyes and lay back against the pillows, letting the events of this day, and most particularly this evening, play out again behind his eyelids. The Dowager Duchess of the Reach was indulging in some matchmaking, that much was clear. She wanted Lord Renly for her granddaughter, and, unless Jaime very much mistook the matter, she wanted Miss Tarth for her grandson.

Someone should warn her. And by 'her' he did not mean Lady Margaery. She was what Addam would no doubt declare to be a knowing one. Did she really understand quite what lay between her brother and Lord Renly? It really was no matter. She understood enough, that was clear, or thought she did. There was no way in the world that she could truly realise quite what the bargain was that she had made until after she actually married Renly, of course, but she was not the sort of person who could be told anything against her own wishes. She would smile and agree, and then do exactly as she chose. There was no saving her from herself.

Miss Tarth, though. She should not be sacrificed to the old lady's schemes. Lord Loras must marry, of course. He owed it to his name to get an heir, even though if he were any man but the eldest son of a peer he would have no business marrying someone, or anyone, while Lord Renly held his heart. But Jaime was determined that that someone would not be Miss Tarth. She deserved better. At the very least, she deserved a husband who would put her first before anyone and anything.

He would have to find a way to give her a discreet but unmistakable hint.

Heaving a sigh, he leaned over and blew out the candle.

That night, Jaime dreamt of blue eyes, as he'd often done before, but this time he didn't know whether they were the accusing eyes of a dying youth or those of a young lady who looked at him quickly, and then away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Ape leader: An old maid; their punishment after death, for neglecting increase and multiply, will be, it is said, leading apes in hell.—'The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue', by Francis Grose. Yeah, not very nice, but a term that was used at the time.  
> • The song that Margaery sings is [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aCBmHZJbgY) from Mozart's 'The Marriage of Figaro', first performed in 1786.
> 
> The lyrics are:
> 
> VOI CHE SAPETE (Tell Me What Love Is)  
> From The Marriage of Figaro—Mozart
> 
> Tell me what love is, what can it be  
> What is this yearning burning me?  
> Can I survive it, will I endure?  
> This is my sickness, is there a cure?  
> First his obsession seizing my brain,  
> Starting in passion, ending in pain.  
> I start to shiver, then I'm on fire,  
> Then I'm aquiver with seething desire.  
> Who knows the secret, who holds the key?  
> I long for something—what can it be?  
> My brain is reeling, I wonder why;  
> And then the feeling I'm going to die.  
> By day it haunts me, haunts me by night.  
> This tender torment, tinged with delight!  
> Tell me what love is, what can it be?  
> What is this yearning, burning in me?  
> What is this yearning, burning in me?  
> What is this yearning, burning in me? 
> 
> • Brienne's piece is the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14, Opus 27 No. 2, which was composed in 1802. Decades later, this sonata was dubbed the Moonlight Sonata, and that is the name it's popularly known by today. You can listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tr0otuiQuU). 
> 
> Brienne plays the first movement, which covers the first six minutes, which is, yes, very slow and sombre. The second movement starts at 6:00. It's quicker and Brienne would find it harder going but probably be able to muddle through it. The third movement starts at 8:05 and there's no way a pianist of Brienne's modest standard would have a hope in hell of playing this in a way that would be even vaguely recognisable. It's really just as well that no one has ever asked her to play the entire sonata. ;)


	5. Duels (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had to chop this chapter in two because it was getting incredibly long. The next bit won't take anything like as long as this one did and should be up later this week.
> 
> Thanks to Telanu for beta help!

Brienne came awake before the dawn. Yawning, she lit the candle by the bed, and hauled herself out from beneath the covers. The fire was little but ashes now, and the room beyond the bedclothes was cold. She checked the clock on the mantel and discovered that the time was a little after half past five in the morning. Next, she crept, bare feet chilled against the cold floorboards beyond the rug, and pressed her ear against the connecting door.

From within the dressing room came the familiar snores of Sarah Storm. Sarah had been a housemaid at Evenfall Hall for as long as Brienne could remember, until she had become Brienne's lady's maid four years before when Brienne came out into society—or, at least, society such as it was on Tarth and along the coast of the Stormlands.

Brienne padded softly away from the door and over to the old-fashioned mahogany tallboy. She pulled out the bottom drawer slowly, and retrieved a pair of breeches and a gentleman's shirt from beneath her travelling cloak. Once she had also taken a pair of drawers and stockings, and a chemise, from the next drawer up, she dressed quickly, feeling like herself again as she pulled on her top-boots. But of course she couldn't be seen out in the hallways of Riverrun dressed in her boy clothes. She pulled her orange blossom sprigged calico day gown from the wardrobe. It was a little roomy in the top and would fit easily enough over the shirt and breeches, and it was one of the few dresses she owned that did not require Sarah's assistance to do it up.

She looked a little odd with her boots peeping out below the hem of her dress, but it didn't matter. The only people she might run into, and that unlikely, were servants, and they were not in a position to ask questions of a guest. Her hair was not so long, so it was easy to tie it back out of the way in a simple queue as the gentlemen were used to do in her father's young days. Finally, she draped her deep blue pelisse over the top of everything else for warmth, took up her candle, and carefully, oh so very carefully, turned the knob on the main door and stepped out into the hall.

The hallways of Riverrun had a ghostly quality at night, particularly once Brienne descended to the great entrance hall, with its dark oak wainscoting. She crossed the hall and then turned into the long gallery, which was used as an armoury and gunroom. Brienne was not interested in guns, though, nor in the medieval suits of armour—which, she felt sure, were not modern reproductions—standing to attention in each of the four corners of the room, nor even the pair of broadswords mounted crossways above the fireplace. She lit several of the candelabra mounted on heavy marble pedestals—decorated with carved garlands in the Classical style with which Brienne was becoming all too familiar—and placed at intervals along each wall, until she judged that she had enough light for her purposes. That done, she discarded her pelisse over the back of a chair. It was swiftly followed by her dress. Then, clad only in her shirt, breeches and boots, she opened a tall, glass-fronted walnut cabinet and, almost reverently, took out a pair of foils.

Galladon had used to be her fencing partner. She'd pestered him to teach her the basic moves over one long summer when he was home on Tarth again after being away at school. By the end of that summer, Brienne was good enough, and focused—obsessed—enough, that their father had hired her a fencing master. She'd practised every chance she got, even roping in the son of one of her father's more prosperous tenant farmers for a time until he was told in no uncertain terms to return to his work in the fields. But her best opponent, her truest opponent, the one who always challenged her the most and demanded of her just as much as he gave himself, was her brother.

Brienne screwed her eyes up tight, head bowed, refusing to let herself cry. She took a deep breath in, then out, in, then out, until she could stand up straight and clear-eyed again. She didn't want to remember Galladon with tears. She wanted to remember him with sword in hand, laughing gaily as he effortlessly parried her attempts at breaking through his guard. It had been a great day the first time she'd managed that, even though she was helped a little by the housekeeper coming into the room at the crucial moment and distracting him for the tiniest fraction of a second. She'd been barely more than fifteen at the time, but already as tall as most men—though not as tall as Galladon, or their father.

Brienne laid one foil down on the end of a nearby table, and then set about testing the balance of the other. There was a long piece of polished wood lying on its side on the table, clearly designed for just this purpose. At home, Brienne used an ordinary yardstick to find the centre of balance of a sword. It seemed that in a ducal residence even this must be done using fancy tools. She laid the foil crossways on the wood, moving it up a little and back from hilt to point until it balanced.

She noted the distance from the hilt to the centre of balance and took up the foil, trying an experimental lunge. The blade was a touch longer than the foils she used at home, and a little heavier in the hand than she preferred, but it would do.

Brienne moved away from the table, towards the centre of the room, bowed to an imaginary opponent, and began.

First a simple attack, extending her arm in a thrust, then parrying in defence of the expected counter attack, and an immediate follow-up riposte, keeping the opponent busy. She let out a long, blissful sigh as she lunged, kicking her front leg forward and letting her back leg do the rest of the work of following through. It was the first time all week that she'd had a chance for anything like real exercise, and the first time since she'd left Tarth that she'd even had an opportunity to wear her breeches.

It felt like freedom, or, at least, freedom from being a lady, which was much the same thing.

Brienne didn't know how long she practised, falling deeper and deeper into the moves until they became more like instinct than conscious decision, and she became one with her sword.

So it was a shock akin to having a pail of ice cold water dashed in her face when a voice coming from behind her asked:

"And just what do you think you're doing here, playing with his grace's weapons?" Brienne whirled around, and there was Jaime Lannister standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised in a haughty and displeased expression that quickly shifted to surprise.

"Good God," he said. "From behind, I thought you were a man."

Brienne coloured, so much so that she felt her skin would burn as surely as it did if she went out at high summer without a hat.

“And I thought you were a gentleman,” she shot back.

“Touché,” he said, looking her up and down as he came properly into the room.

“What are you doing here at this hour?” she asked. Her question was blunt, unladylike, almost rude. But she wasn’t a lady right now. Not dressed in these clothes, and with a sword in her hand.

“I might ask the same of you again, now that I see that you're a young lady. But to answer your question—since I do retain some vestiges of gentlemanly behaviour, despite what you might think—I am up at this hour because I’ve been a soldier for almost all of my adult life. I always wake far earlier than the _ton_ deems correct. I dressed and came downstairs because I didn’t want to sit there, staring at the walls of my bedchamber, until the breakfast hour.” Ser Jaime came forward the rest of the way and picked up the second foil that was still lying where Brienne had left it on the table. He held it out and peered along its length, hefted it in his hand, then laid it down to check the centre of balance. "Are you any good?" he asked as he lifted the sword, holding it in a sure and steady grip.

"I've had some lessons," Brienne said, unwilling to give away anything more than that.

"Indeed?" Ser Jaime looked mildly intrigued. "Care to put them to the test?"

It had been more than three years since Brienne's father had released her fencing master from service, and almost the same length of time since Galladon… since the last time she had sparred with Galladon. Brienne had not had a regular opponent since then, but she still practised her moves most days.

"Why not?" she replied.

Ser Jaime set down the foil, shrugged out of his coat—the same green riding coat he had been wearing when he arrived at Riverrun yesterday—and draped it over the back of a chair. It was strangely intimate to find herself facing him in his shirtsleeves, though his shirt was looser than his perfectly fitted coat. Even so, the shirt did little to disguise the breadth of his shoulders and the strength of his arms. She would have to hope that that strength was not matched with finesse, at least when it came to swordplay.

"How do you find these?" he asked, taking up the foil again. "They look a trifle overlong for my tastes. And I've used lighter blades."

"They're fine," Brienne said, lifting her foil as he came around the side of the table to face her.

"But then what more can one expect from poor old Edmure? The man has the heart of a groom, not a soldier." Ser Jaime sighed as if disappointed, and eyed his blade with disfavour.

"I'm not a soldier, either," Brienne pointed out, not taking her eyes off him.

"No, you're not. _En garde_ ," Ser Jaime said, suddenly all seriousness, all focus.

Brienne was ready for him, but he did not go in for the attack immediately. Instead he circled just as she circled, and in the end Brienne was the one to make the first offensive move.

She was met with an almost indolent parry—he wasn't even looking at her directly!—but the neat conciseness of his moves told Brienne that she was facing someone of not inconsiderable skill with a sword. Making showy, flamboyant moves was easy—and dangerous in the way that anyone using a weapon without exercising the proper respect for it was dangerous. Ser Jaime's style was the very opposite of flamboyant, but something told Brienne that he was dangerous just the same.

They circled a little more, still sizing each other up, and Brienne came in suddenly with a feint. Ser Jaime parried again, not taken in for a second, but he did not attack. Instead, he smiled, the small, mocking smile that Brienne hated. "You'll need to try moving your point closer to my forte if you want to have a chance of a feint like that working," he said. "Though you do move well," he observed.

Brienne just kept looking at him, and waited.

"For a woman," he added, and there it was, the sting in the tail she'd been expecting.

Brienne glared at him, clenched her teeth, and lunged.

Again, he parried, but this time he followed up with a riposte. Their swords crossed again, and then again.

"You shouldn't grimace before you lunge. It rather gives away the game," he said, as they circled, both ready for anything.

And then he attacked.

If this had been a demonstration match and Brienne had been watching from the side, she might have been struck by his dexterity, his perfect pacing, the way he _moved_ , like the lion on his family's coat of arms, a picture of masculine beauty and skill. But there was no time for more than a split second's appreciation for the sight of a master swordsman at work before she was the one defending and defending and defending as he drove her back towards the far wall.

Her counterattack came just in time, and then she was pushing back, forcing him to retreat a few steps towards the middle of the room.

"You're good," he said, the surprise in his voice only serving to make Brienne clench her teeth even harder. "Graceless, but good."

 _Graceless_. Wasn't that the story of her life?

She wasted no time before trying a compound attack: attack, then feint, then attack again. He countered it all, ending with a circle parry that caught the tip of her foil and deflected it neatly.

Ser Jaime dipped his head, with one swift movement wiping away a bead of sweat from his brow and pushing a vagrant lock of golden hair that had slipped down over one eye. He had clear, green eyes, and the light in them was intelligent and knowing. Too knowing for Brienne's comfort.

She attacked, doing her very best to keep her expression neutral, to give nothing away, and this time she very nearly broke through his guard.

"Now, now," he said, as he followed up his parry with a riposte. "We can't have that."

"Yes, indeed, Lannister. We can't have you bested by a young lady," said a voice.

Brienne and Ser Jaime turned as one, to find Lord Loras standing in the doorway, eyeing them speculatively, with Lord Renly close behind him.

As the two gentlemen came into the room, Brienne became hideously conscious of how she must look. She was not just alone with a gentleman, and at a most unlikely hour of the day for her even to be out of her bed, but wearing breeches and shirt, sweating and no doubt red-faced into the bargain. She wanted to sink into the floor.

"Who says she would have bested me—or will?" Ser Jaime turned to Brienne. "Do you wish to continue, Miss Tarth?" he asked, and there was a twinkle in his eye. He was mocking her. Again!

"No." Brienne said through gritted teeth. "Thank you for the practice, Ser Jaime," she added, trying and probably failing to sound something like the gracious lady she wanted to appear to be to Lord Renly.

She wanted to stalk from the room, head held high, but of course she could not. First, she had to put the Duke's foils back where she found them. She held out her hand to Ser Jaime. He stared at it a moment, and then must have realised that she was waiting for him to give her his foil. But he did not do so. Instead, he murmured, "Give me yours. I'll put them away."

Startled, Brienne could only stare at him. The laughter was gone from his eyes. He looked serious, but not unfriendly.

"Thank you," she muttered as she handed over her foil, not knowing where to look.

"Thank _you_ ," he said, and she didn't have to look to know that he was silently laughing at her again.

Brienne managed not to break into a run as she made her way back to the chair where she had left her outer garments. She wasn't going to try to slip her dress back on. Not with three pairs of male eyes so close, and most particularly when only two of those pairs of eyes could be relied upon to do the gentlemanly thing and look away. She pulled her pelisse around her and folded her dress over one arm.

And yes, _he_ was watching her. He looked her up and down from top to toe, taking her in in one long glance. Brienne wondered what he made of the sight. Nothing good, she was sure.

"Lord Loras, Lord Renly, Ser Jaime." She nodded to each of them in turn.

"Miss Tarth," they chorused in response.

And then she fled.

~*~

The rest of the day proved to be oddly anticlimactic after such a beginning.

The scullery maid was cleaning the ashes from the fireplace in the great entrance hall as Brienne left the armoury, but luckily she encountered no one else on the way back up to her bedchamber. Outside, the rain had still not stopped, but even through the gloom of rainclouds it was starting to get light enough that Brienne could find her way back upstairs. This was also lucky, since Brienne had left the armoury without any thought for the candle she'd brought with her when she came downstairs.

Sarah was waiting for her in her bedchamber, of course, but she didn't seem greatly surprised when Brienne shrugged off her pelisse to reveal her shirt and breeches underneath. She simply clicked her tongue and suggested that Brienne take off her boots while Sarah fetched her morning chocolate as well as hot water to wash her face.

Brienne was in two minds about going down to breakfast. She did not want to set eyes on Jaime Lannister again that day—or ever, if she had her way—and as for Lord Renly and Lord Loras, well, her face still burned at the memory of their seeing her like that. But hiding out in her bedchamber would only delay the inevitable. In the end, once she had drunk her chocolate and washed her face and hands to Sarah's satisfaction, she dressed in a morning gown of sprigged muslin, took out her writing box and wrote a long letter to her father, and finally went downstairs again at nine o'clock, hoping that she had timed her entrance to avoid almost everyone.

In this, she was mostly successful. Lady Stark and Miss Poole were both already in the breakfast room, having also chosen to breakfast early, but none of the other ladies had yet arisen, and most likely would not for another hour or so.

"The gentlemen are all gone to the armoury," Lady Stark explained. "It has occurred to Lord Loras and Lord Renly that fencing is a sport that may be undertaken inside, and so the gentlemen went there immediately after they finished their breakfast to try their skill against each other."

"That seems like an excellent plan," Brienne said, quite sincerely. She would make sure not to go anywhere near the armoury, and all would be well.

Breakfast at Riverrun was a much more substantial affair than Brienne was used to. At Evenfall Hall, breakfast usually consisted of hot rolls or toast and butter, together with some preserves, a cake of some sort and tea, plus either a plate of eggs or sausages, or whatever the fishermen had brought up to the Hall from their early catch. Here at Riverrun, there was a long row of chafing dishes lined up along the sideboard. When Brienne investigated their contents she discovered not one but three different kinds of egg dishes, two more containing bacon and ham, plus fried sausages and sautéed mushrooms. She took a little of the scrambled eggs and some bacon, and when she sat down at the table a footman stepped forward at once to pour her a cup of tea.

There were more choices laid out on the table: pound cake and plum cake and Bath cake, as well as muffins and rolls and toast, with strawberry preserve, marmalade or honey to go with them. Thanks to her ample dimensions and the active life she led, Brienne possessed a hearty appetite, but even she quailed a little at the sight of all the many dishes on offer.

"Is there anything you'd like to do today, my dear?" Lady Stark asked, taking a slice of toast from a silver toast rack and buttering it.

"More than anything, I'd like to go for a ride, Lady Stark," Brienne said, looking out of the tall windows of the breakfast room to the rain falling steadily outside. Was the rain perhaps easing, just the slightest bit, or was that just her wishful thinking? "Even a long walk through the fields would not go amiss." She sighed.

"Perhaps tomorrow, if not today," Lady Stark said. "It can hardly rain forever, or even for forty days and forty nights."

"Even four days and four nights was more than enough," Brienne said, reaching for the basket of rolls. "I never expected that the rain would keep up for close to a full week."

Brienne was about halfway through her breakfast when Lady Margaery appeared in the breakfast room. She bade them all good morning, and went over to inspect the offerings on the sideboard.

"Your grandmother is not joining us for breakfast, Lady Margaery?" Lady Stark asked as Lady Margaery joined them at the table.

"No, she is not, Lady Stark. I have persuaded her to take a tray in her room instead," Lady Margaery replied, taking the seat beside Brienne. "That was no mean feat, I assure you," she added with a mischievous little smile.

"The Dowager Duchess has always been a very… determined lady," Lady Stark observed.

"Indeed," said Lady Margaery, before turning to Brienne. "Miss Tarth, I wonder if you might help me, or if we might help each other, at least."

"Of course, Lady Margaery," said Brienne, setting down her teacup in its saucer. "How may I be of service?"

"I have never visited Riverrun before, while I understand you have been here several days already. I wonder if you might guide me in exploring the house this morning, since we must stay inside until the rain eases. Unless you have a huge pile of correspondence awaiting your attention, or some other matter to which you wish to devote your morning?"

Brienne shook her head. "There is nothing pressing. I would be happy to accompany you," she said, and was surprised to find that this was true. "Though Miss Poole has been here weeks longer than I. She should come with us and set us on the right path, should we become lost."

"Of course," Lady Margaery agreed, but Brienne couldn't help but notice that a little of the brightness went out of Lady Margaery's smile. "Would you care to accompany us in our explorations, Miss Poole?" Lady Margaery asked, all charming politeness.

Miss Poole glanced at Lady Stark, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. "It would be my honour to accompany you, Lady Margaery, and you, Miss Tarth."

"Then it's settled," Lady Margaery declared, and, just like that, it was.

Once they had all finished breakfast, Lady Stark rose from her seat. "I trust you young ladies will have a pleasant morning together. I will be in the yellow saloon attending to my correspondence, should you have need of me." And with that she smiled benevolently on all of them, and left them to their own devices.

Since Lady Margaery was already familiar with the great entrance hall and dining room, as well as the drawing room, Brienne led the small company first to the library. This was contained in a long gallery on the eastern side of the house, a mirror image of the armoury on the western side. This room had not yet felt the weight of the new Duchess's touch upon it. It was stately in its dimensions, and the sculpted moulding in white and gold along the walls betrayed its Rococo origins, but it felt lived in in a way that the drawing room, with its mix of modern, uncomfortable furniture, did not.

They left Miss Poole browsing near the door—though it had to be said that Miss Poole seemed grateful to be left and not be expected to contribute to the conversation for the moment—and wandered the length of the library. It was a long room; Brienne had never seen so many books in one place before coming here.

Lady Margaery seated herself at one end of a comfortable-looking sofa, whose curved back and cabriole legs in walnut identified it as being of the Queen Anne style. Somewhat reluctantly, sensing that confidences would be expected to be exchanged, Brienne sat down beside her.

"So tell me, Miss Tarth," said Lady Margaery, "what do you think of my brother?"

"Your brother, Lady Margaery?" Brienne said, wondering at Lady Margaery's question. "Why I barely know him, of course, but he seems a very pleasant and courteous young gentleman."

Lady Margaery smiled. "I am pleased to hear it. He is very taken with you."

"He i- _is_ he?" Brienne managed to get out, blinking in surprise. She was fairly sure that Lord Loras had only truly noticed her twice since they were introduced: last evening, when his grandmother commanded him to turn the pages for Brienne while she played the pianoforte, and again early this morning, when he discovered her in the armoury with Ser Jaime. Brienne's ears went hot at the memory of that second encounter.

"Yes, indeed." Lady Margaery let out a tinkling laugh, the sort of sound that Brienne would never have been capable of producing if given a thousand years to try to perfect it. "I- I had not thought…," Brienne began hesitantly.

"I understand you are your father's heiress, Miss Tarth? The title, as well as everything else?" Lady Margaery said, interrupting Brienne, but in gentle, friendly tones, even though her question was more than a touch impertinent on so short an acquaintance. But then, the usual rules did not apply to a duke's daughter in the way they did to lesser mortals.

"Yes, I- Well, as you heard last night, my brother died in Spain. That leaves only me of my father's four children, and because of the peculiar circumstances in which the viscountcy was created in the first place, the title will pass to me rather than to my cousin Endrew when… when the time comes."

"So you must marry," Lady Margaery said, nodding in understanding.

"Yes, I must marry," Brienne agreed. It was only the simple truth. "My duty to my family demands it."

They sat there for a moment in silence.

"Family duty is something we both understand, Miss Tarth," Lady Margaery said softly. And then she jumped to her feet, taking Brienne by the hand and pulling her up after her. Of course, Brienne helped her in this; the sylph-like Lady Margaery would have no hope of moving her should Brienne decide to stay stubbornly seated. "Let us continue with our explorations. Where to next, Miss Tarth?"

"Back into the entrance hall first, and then perhaps upstairs to the state apartments?" Brienne suggested, as they walked back to the door through which they had entered.

Miss Poole, who was standing by the shelves a little way down from the door, heard this last little bit of conversation as they neared her. "Oh, no, Miss Tarth. Not the state apartments," she said, and then went pink at her own audacity in joining the conversation uninvited. Taking a deep breath, she drew herself up to her full height, such as it was, and continued bravely, "That is, the state apartments are very fine, and a sight not to be missed by any visitor to Riverrun, but before we go upstairs we must stop to view the armoury. There are suits of armour in there, you know," she added, somewhat artlessly, to Lady Margaery. "Real ones!"

"Then we must not miss the _real_ suits of armour," Lady Margaery said gravely, but with a twinkle in her eye that seemed to be intended for Brienne. "Lead the way, Miss Poole."

Brienne had no choice but to follow them out of the library and back into the entrance hall, Miss Poole chattering all the while. It seemed that once the dam had been released there was no stopping the flow of words.

The door to the armoury was closed, but as they drew closer, Brienne could hear the unmistakable sounds of activity and masculine laughter emanating from within. "I don't think-" she began, but Miss Poole was already knocking on the door.

They waited a moment or two, and then the door opened to reveal Lord Renly.

"Lady Margaery!" he exclaimed, and then, a little belatedly, he added, "and Miss Tarth and Miss Poole. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"We are on a tour of the house, Lord Renly," Lady Margaery replied, "and I have it on good authority that there are _real_ suits of armour to be found in this room."

"There is some armour," he agreed, "and some other fusty old relics. But perhaps another time might be better?" He looked a little uneasily at all three of them. It was not quite proper for unmarried young ladies to be present at so masculine a gathering.

But Lady Margaery peered around him. "Is that Loras, fencing now?" she inquired, and then, answering her own question: "It is! Oh, I must see this." And before Brienne—or Renly, by the look of him—knew quite what was happening, Lady Margaery was leading them into the armoury.

All of the gentlemen were present, including the Duke and his father-in-law. They and Mr Marbrand stood off to one side, by the windows, while in the middle of the room Lord Loras fenced with Ser Jaime. The ladies stopped to watch on the other side of the room, near the fireplace, and chairs were hastily fetched for them by Lord Renly and Mr Marbrand.

Surprisingly, at least to Brienne, Lord Loras was skilled at handling a sword. But, it soon became apparent, Ser Jaime was better. He was some years older than Lord Loras, but had the twin advantages of height—and therefore reach—and strength. Lord Loras battled bravely, however, and the match continued for some minutes.

"Does he not appear to advantage like this?" Lady Margaery whispered to Brienne, nodding at her brother. "He never has to resort to padding in the shoulders of his coats, you know."

"I can well believe it," Brienne said, watching the two men circle, and if her eyes followed the one rather more than the other, well, as with where her gaze had rested as she came downstairs to dinner last evening, no one but herself need be any the wiser.

The swords clashed, and clashed again, before Ser Jaime made a straight thrust, so basic and straightforward a move that Lord Loras was clearly not expecting it. He parried successfully—just—and threw most of his weight to the left and inclined the point of his sword that way, obviously intending to cross Ser Jaime's blade. But before he could do so, Ser Jaime disengaged, and, with nothing in its path, Lord Loras's foil went flying.

"More?" Ser Jaime asked, lazily, as if he had just barely broken a sweat after what had clearly been a reasonably long match.

"No, thank you," Lord Loras replied, smiling as he picked up his foil, though his smile seemed a trifle forced.

On the other side of the room, bank notes and coins were changing hands.

Ser Jaime turned to face the ladies then and it seemed to Brienne that as he bowed he winked—just for a tiny fraction of a second, and at her.

She must have imagined it. Neither Lady Margaery nor Miss Poole seemed to have noticed anything. _Surely_ she had imagined it?

Ser Jaime straightened again, that stray lock of blond hair flopping down in front of his eyes just as it had done this morning. Brienne curled her fingers into her palms until it felt as though her nails would break the skin. "Anyone else?" he asked the room at large as he pushed the loose hair back, though his eyes rested on Brienne—no, she was _not_ imagining it!—an instant before he turned a questioning gaze to the gentlemen.

"We should let the gentlemen continue with their _games_ ," Brienne said quickly, getting to her feet. "We can look at the armour another time, at our leisure."

"Very well, Miss Tarth," Lady Margaery said. "I think I have seen enough here in any case."

Brienne glanced at her sharply, but Lady Margaery's countenance was just the same as it ever was: smiling, friendly and betraying nothing of her inner thoughts.

"Thank you for the demonstration, gentlemen. It was most enlightening," Lady Margaery said, a gesture of her hand taking in both Ser Jaime and her brother, who had gone over to surrender his weapon to Mr Marbrand.

Ser Jaime bowed again, and the lock of hair slipped out of place _again_. "A pleasure, as always, Lady Margaery," he said.

Nodding briefly to the gentlemen, Brienne turned and led the way out of the room without another word, hands clenched by her sides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few lines of dialogue in this chapter are taken from Brienne and Jaime's sword fight on the bridge.
> 
> A pelisse was a lady's long coat. Like many female coats of this period, it was influenced by the shape and cut of men's military coats. In the Regency period waists were high (just under the bust) and skirts were quite narrow, which gives the pelisse a long, straight line.
> 
> I wrote a deep blue pelisse for Brienne - naturally - and then a day or so later a picture of a deep blue pelisse popped up on my tumblr dash, which felt like the universe was trying to tell me something. Go here to take a look at it: https://luthienebonyx.tumblr.com/post/186328903328/fashionsfromhistory-pelisse-c1820-rijksmuseum


	6. Duels (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner on the second evening of the house party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Telanu and slipsthrufingers for beta help and suggestions with this part.

Once the tour of the main parts of the house was completed, with Lady Margaery making all the appropriate sounds of awe at the magnificence of the state apartments, Brienne's day continued much as all her other days at Riverrun had done. She wrote letters, even though there was no way of sending them anywhere until the flood waters receded. She practised on the pianoforte, even though she was at best an indifferent player. And at one o'clock the Duchess insisted that everyone—even the gentlemen—sit down to a meal that she described as 'luncheon'.

This was not nearly so formal as the evening meal, naturally, though it was still strange to Brienne to see ladies and gentlemen sitting down to eat together in the dining room while wearing their morning clothes. Luncheon consisted of a cold collation of meats, plus bread, cheese and fruit—though, the Duchess being the Duchess, there were four kinds of meat, every possible seasonal fruit, a selection of breads and pastries, and a multitude of hard and soft cheeses. The guests sat where they liked and, somewhat to her surprise, Brienne found herself seated next to Lord Renly, with his friend Lord Loras on his other side.

"So, you like music, Miss Tarth?" Lord Renly asked, once they had helped themselves to a little of the nearest dishes.

"A little," Brienne replied, pressing her lips together to try to hide her dismay. Had she really hidden so very well her dislike of performing even in a small gathering last night? She did not think so. Lord Renly had not been paying her attention, then. She had thought it to be so, and yet the confirmation still smarted. "And you, Lord Renly, do you like music? Or perhaps you prefer fencing."

"Fencing and music both have their places in life, though perhaps a little more fencing and a little less music is more to my taste," he admitted.

"I believe that is very much my view, too," Brienne agreed. She was not a great conversationalist, of that she was all too well aware, but she knew she had provided an opening for the conversation to continue. And yet it did not. Lord Renly merely smiled and nodded, and took some more ham before turning to talk to Lord Loras.

He had seemed far more erudite and attentive when she had first met him. Or perhaps not. Her eighteen-year-old self had thought so, but her eighteen-year-old self had been dazzled by the kindness Lord Renly had shown her. He had not known many of those present at her come-out ball. Certainly, none of his particular friends had been there. It would have been as easy for him to devote his attention to her as to anyone else, apart from the fact that he had been kind enough not to notice how she looked. But since then Brienne had certainly met men of greater address, even if she was still woefully inadequate at matching their contribution to a conversation.

It felt almost a betrayal to even think it, but perhaps Lord Renly was not quite the paragon she had built him up to be in her mind.

The sound of Lady Margaery's unmistakable laugh from across the table broke through her thoughts. Lady Margaery was seated next to Ser Jaime, and they were both smiling, heads bent together conspiratorially.

For some reason, the sight put Brienne in an even blacker mood. She scowled down at her plate, and it was with relief that she greeted the Duchess's eventual signal to rise from the table.

~*~

Brienne couldn't decide what to wear when she dressed for dinner that evening. This surprised Sarah, and herself even more. She owned a selection of evening gowns in a variety of light shades suited to both her pale colouring and her status as an unmarried young lady, and all were cut according to the severe and barely embellished style she favoured. Usually, she hardly thought about which gown she wore to dinner and simply chose one at random. None of them improved or worsened her looks, or at least that was what she always told herself.

"No, not white," she said, shaking her head at the gown of fine jaconet muslin that Sarah proffered.

"Then what about the straw-coloured silk?" Sarah suggested.

Brienne shook her head again.

"The primrose crape?" her doughty handmaiden tried.

"No, not that one."

"You wore the apple green last night, so you can't wear that." Sarah rummaged through the contents of the wardrobe, until she came almost to the very end. "What about the Saxon blue sarsenet?" she asked, pulling out a gown in a soft grey-blue tinged with a suggestion of lavender. "You always look well in blue."

Brienne grimaced. In blue, she looked as well as she ever did, which was not saying much. "I suppose the blue will have to do," she said. "And you may set a few curls about my face as well, but only a very few."

"I'll have the curling tongs ready in a trice, Miss Brienne," Sarah assured her. Brienne did not provide her with many opportunities to dress her up as Sarah felt a highborn young lady _should_ be dressed, and Brienne was sure she was not about to let this unexpected chance go to waste.

A little more than twenty minutes later, Brienne studied her reflection in the glass. The lady who looked back at her had large, well-opened eyes, their deep blue accentuated by the blue of her gown. Her mouth was still too wide, and her face too broad, but it was framed by a series of small blonde curls. They were not the bunches of ringlets that were decreed by the _ton_ to be the height of fashion, but still certainly a step up—or so Sarah would describe it—from the simple chignon in which she usually wore her naturally straight tresses. She had also allowed Sarah to adorn her hair with a silver filigree comb, and her favourite string of pearls, all harvested from the waters surrounding Tarth, was clasped about her neck.

She stood up, feeling… conspicuous, even facing so partial an audience as Sarah.

"You look fine as five pence, Miss Brienne!" Sarah exclaimed.

"I'll do," Brienne said. "I'll _have_ to do, for there's no time to change anything now."

And with that she squared her shoulders, opened the door, and stepped out into the hallway. There was no one else to be seen. Brienne was about halfway to the top of the stairs when she spied a book lying on one of the small tables placed against the wall at intervals. She stopped to look at it. It was a handsome volume, bound in red Morocco leather with the title on the front cover embossed in gold: 'The Prince' by Niccolò Machiavelli. She picked it up and flipped through a few of the pages—just as the door to the nearest room opened, and Lady Margaery emerged.

Lady Margaery was wearing a green crape gown, much the same shade as the one Brienne had worn last evening, but that was the extent of the resemblance between the two dresses. Lady Margaery's gown was cut low, and it was adorned with ribbons and touches of lace, as well as silver spangles here and there catching the light at unexpected moments—though not so many as to overdo the overall effect of charming elegance.

"Ah, Miss Tarth, you have found my book, I see. I was wondering where it had got to."

Brienne handed it over. "Interesting subject matter for a young lady to be reading," she observed.

"Perhaps," Lady Margaery said. "But then you and I, my dear Miss Tarth, are neither of us young ladies quite in the common style." And with that slightly cryptic utterance, she disappeared into her bedchamber, only to reappear a moment later without the book.

"Oh, I see we match!" Lady Margaery said, touching a hand to her shining curls before Brienne could dispute this claim, and Brienne saw that Lady Margaery also wore a silver filigree comb in her hair.

"So we do," Brienne said, because there was really no way of disagreeing without being impolite.

The gentlemen were already waiting below as Brienne and Lady Margaery came down the stairs. All eyes were on Lady Margaery. Brienne had no illusions about that—until her gaze fell on one particular gentleman and she was startled to find green eyes looking right back at her. She held herself a little straighter as they descended the last few stairs.

"Miss Tarth." It was Ser Jaime who greeted her. Somehow, Brienne was not surprised. There was a mischievous glint in his eye that reminded her of when he had winked at her in the armoury after his fencing match with Lord Loras this morning.

"Ser Jaime," she replied, repressively—or trying to sound repressive. She suspected that she failed in that.

"Have you heard the glad tidings?"

"There is good news of something?" she asked, wondering what it could be about, since no one could yet get in or out of the grounds to convey news in either direction.

"The very best news. The rain has stopped."

"Indeed. I am most glad to hear it."

"We need not be stuck here past Monday after all," he said, the relief plain in his voice.

Brienne tried very hard not to take that personally. No more than he did she wish to be trapped here at the mercy of the Duchess's plans indefinitely.

"We must hope that the flood waters recede now that the rain has stopped. Either way, I fear you will have to look for a new duelling partner before you leave," she said. "Lord Loras did not seem to be of a mind to duel with you again after this morning."

"He was no real challenge," Ser Jaime said, casting a dismissive glance Lord Loras's way. And then, looking back at Brienne and straight into her eyes, he added, "He was not the best opponent I faced this morning."

There could be no mistaking his meaning. Brienne flushed and did not know where to look, and yet somehow she was still looking straight at Ser Jaime.

"There you go again," he said, the by now familiar mocking smile touching the corners of his mouth.

"What do you mean?" she asked, frowning, and positive that she was going to regret asking the question.

"You've gone quite pink, Miss Tarth."

"It's not very gentlemanly of you to mention it, Ser Jaime."

"Ah, but I think we decided this morning that I am no proper gentleman."

The butler entered the room then, and announced in sonorous tones, "Dinner is served, your grace." Brienne glanced about, surprised to find that the other ladies were present. She had not noticed their arrival in the great hall.

Everyone found their partners and assembled for the promenade in to the dining room without delay. Brienne laid her hand on Ser Jaime's arm, not daring to look at him as he matched his stride to hers and walked her in to dinner. Just as last evening, she felt that same odd sense of easy harmony, that they were the right fit for each other, or at least while walking this short distance, if at no other time.

Dinner tonight was much the same as dinner last night in most important particulars, the main difference being that at least Brienne knew what to expect this time. Champagne was poured and the soup brought in, followed by the rest of the first course, and dinner began in earnest.

"Tell me, Miss Tarth," Ser Jaime said as the remains of the first course were at last cleared away, "who taught you to fence? Properly, I mean. Your skill with a blade is clearly not the result of just a few lessons."

Brienne felt absurdly pleased. Ser Jaime was not one to throw around empty compliments with abandon. And this was not empty, nor even really a compliment, but more a simple statement of fact, as he saw it. She tried very hard not to blush, but her pale, freckled skin betrayed her, just as it always did.

She took a sip of her champagne before answering, hoping that the cold liquid would go some way to cooling the fire in her cheeks.

"You're right in thinking that I did have a fencing master," she admitted. "Goodwin Herston was his name. He had been a soldier at one point, I think. But he was not the person who first taught me how to fence."

"So, your father or…" Ser Jaime's expression was serious, for a wonder.

"My brother." She uttered the word without her voice wavering and betraying the depth of her emotion at the memories the conversation was conjuring up. "I haven't fenced much since… since he went away that last time. My father dismissed Mr Herston at around the same time. He said that now I was a young lady and out in society I should put aside such pursuits."

Ser Jaime's eyes narrowed at this. "So when you… this morning," he amended, glancing about to check that none of their neighbours was paying attention to their conversation, "You had not fenced in three years? Four?"

"Nearer to three since I last had an opponent worthy of the name," she said. "But I practise the moves most days, or, at least, I do when I am at home on Tarth."

"Your keeping up with me as long as you did is even more imp-"

"Keeping up?!" Brienne exclaimed, and then looked about her quickly. She found Lord Renly, on her other side, staring at her. "My apologies, Lord Renly," she said. "Ser Jaime said something that surprised me."

"I can well imagine that he might have," Lord Renly said dryly, before returning to his conversation with Lady Margaery.

"I was _not_ keeping up," Brienne hissed to Ser Jaime immediately afterwards. "I was _pushing_ you, and if Lord Renly and Lord Loras had not come in at that moment-"

"I would have defeated you, just as I later defeated Lord Loras," Ser Jaime finished smoothly.

"But you said I was better than Lord Loras," Brienne pointed out, eyes narrowing in turn.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean that you're as good as I am," he said simply, as though this, too, were merely a fact.

Brienne drew in a deep breath, her cheeks just as hot now as before, but with outrage this time rather than embarrassment, and opened her mouth to retaliate.

The footmen chose that moment to start bringing in the second course.

Brienne let out her breath very, very slowly. She did not look at Ser Jaime as she did so, but she could just imagine the expression on his face. She watched as the footmen set one dish after another on the table, and wondered if there would be even more removes tonight than there had been last night.

By the end of the second course, Brienne had lost count of how many dishes had been brought in.

"You know, I think I should like to see you take on Lord Loras. With a sword, I mean," Ser Jaime said conversationally as the table was cleared after the second course.

"But you already know that I'm better than he is, do you not?" Brienne replied, reminding herself not to let him rile her.

"Yes, exactly. I'd put my money on you. It's about time I won a wager. This morning I had not the opportunity, since I was the one taking on all comers."

"That sounds dishonourable somehow," Brienne said. "To use a god-given skill like that merely for the basis of a wager." Of course, she knew that gentlemen would place a wager on the outcome of almost anything. Thanks to Galladon, she even knew about the famous betting book kept at White’s gentleman’s club in London. And yet, making a wager on a test of skill did not sit easy with her still.

"It's better than using it to kill people," Ser Jaime said flatly. The look in his eyes was suddenly deadly serious.

Brienne caught her breath. "I'm sorry… I- I didn't mean… I'm sorry," she said. Clearly, she had touched a raw nerve. She couldn't imagine what was at the heart of it, but Ser Jaime had been fighting in the Peninsular War for years. No doubt he had seen death many times, and possessed a whole collection of unpleasant memories.

Ser Jaime shook his head. "It's no matter," he said curtly. "The fault is mine for letting my thoughts stray in a direction that was not appropriate for my current surroundings. I beg your pardon, Miss Tarth. Please forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive," Brienne said, biting her lower lip. She felt as though she did not know this grim, hard man—and maybe she didn't.

"Just now I joked a little about Lord Loras but…." He was already speaking in a low voice, and he lowered it still further as he continued, "Be wary, Miss Tarth. Lord Loras would not make you happy, were you to wed him."

"But there is no question of this," Brienne protested, but she remembered that Lady Stark had used just the same word in warning her about the Dowager Duchess's intentions yesterday.

"Isn't there?" Ser Jaime glanced towards the other side of the table, where the Dowager Duchess was hidden behind the enormous epergne with its leaping silver trout.

"No," Brienne said firmly. "None. _Not_ that it is any concern of yours whom I marry." She looked down at the tabletop, feeling the flush spread along her neck and glad that the subdued lighting in the dining room made it more difficult for him—or anyone—to see. She looked up to find his eyes still on her.

"No, it is not my concern. Still, I am glad to hear it," Ser Jaime said at last. He did not say anything more, but merely swirled the wine in his glass before taking a long swig.

Brienne thought he must be as relieved as she when the sweet course was served a moment later, and they could concentrate on the meal once more.

Soon enough, it was time for the ladies to withdraw from the dining room.

"Until we meet again, Miss Tarth," Ser Jaime murmured as everyone stood.

"Ser Jaime," was all Brienne said in response, as she turned to follow the Duchess through to the drawing room. She was relieved to have the mountain of food over and done with for another evening. However, she was less pleased, once she had taken a seat in the drawing room, to find Lady Margaery sitting down beside her again.

"I mean to ask the Duchess if we may have some dancing tonight," Lady Margaery confided.

"Indeed," Brienne said. No doubt Lady Margaery would contrive to dance with Lord Renly. "You do not wish to entertain us with your singing again, Lady Margaery? You have such a sweet, true voice."

"How very kind of you to say so, Miss Tarth. Perhaps we will both perform again, but tomorrow evening rather than tonight. I should very much like to listen to you playing something else for us."

She sounded sincere. She _looked_ sincere. She must _be_ sincere. Surely?

"Perhaps," Brienne agreed, just as sincerely hoping that she would not be called upon to play on the pianoforte again during her stay. Of course it was unlikely that she could make it through at least two more evenings without being forced to parade her maidenly accomplishments—such as they were—but she could hope.

"Margaery, my child, come here and show the Duchess that hair comb of yours," the Dowager Duchess called in her imperious way.

With a tiny smile at Brienne, Lady Margaery rose, and went to do as she was bid. The Dowager Duchess was again wearing one of her turbans, while the Duchess of the Riverlands was, inevitably, wearing the sort of diamond-laden tiara usually seen at a ball—or perhaps at one of the formal affairs held from time to time by Her Majesty the Queen.

Brienne watched as Lady Margaery touched a hand to the comb in her hair, and turned around to allow the Duchess a better view. She suppressed a smile, and turned to engage Miss Poole in conversation.

It was not so very long before the gentlemen joined them in the drawing room. True to her earlier words to Brienne, Lady Margaery immediately jumped to her feet and begged very prettily that they might have some dancing. The Duchess assented, but then, she had little choice but to do so if she did not wish to be seen as an unaccommodating hostess.

"That's all very well for you young things, but my dancing days are long over. What do you say to a few rubbers of whist while the young ones dance, Walder?" the Dowager Duchess said, turning to address Lord Frey. "Between the two of us we should be able to out-manoeuvre any opposition."

"Is that a command, Olenna?" Lord Frey enquired dryly. But he turned to his daughter and said, "You and Edmure will make up the four with us, Roslin." It must have been a request, and yet it did not sound like one.

The Duke gave the nod for a card table to be set up at the far end of the room, close to the fire, while two footmen moved the furniture from the centre of the room and rolled back the carpet in preparation for the dancing.

"Would you mind very much providing the music for us, Lady Stark?" Lady Margaery asked.

Lady Stark smiled. "I expected nothing less, Lady Margaery," she said, and took herself over to the pianoforte.

That left Brienne and the other two young ladies, plus the four younger gentlemen, for the dancing. There was no chance that Brienne could sit out. Three couples were the minimum required for a country dance, because of course that was what they would be dancing. The cotillion required four, so it was out of the question.

Just as Brienne had expected, Lord Renly was already bowing over Lady Margaery's hand, and Mr Marbrand was walking purposefully towards Miss Poole. She saw Lord Loras take a step in her direction, and steeled herself.

"Miss Tarth, if I might have the honour?"

Brienne blinked. Ser Jaime was standing before her, the familiar little smile playing about his lips, as if even this amused him. Where had he come from?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this is still not the end of 'Duels', which was meant to be one chapter but had other ideas. Part III will be up in a few days.
> 
> **Luncheon**  
>  Dinner had long been the most important meal of the day, and early in the 18th Century was usually eaten in the early-mid afternoon. As the century progressed, dinner time became later and later until it morphed into an evening meal, and the time between breakfast and dinner got longer and longer. By the time of the Regency people had started taking a light meal around the middle of the day, and so lunch was born. To begin with, luncheon was a meal that ladies would often take together at home or visiting friends, while the gentlemen would be more likely to have something to eat at their clubs.
> 
> **White's** is the oldest and most exclusive gentleman's club in London, founded in 1693. Since 1778, the club has been located in St James's Street in the City of Westminster, not far from St James's Palace. During the Regency period, club members included Beau Brummell, the leader of fashionable society, and the Duke of Wellington, the commander of the British forces in the Peninsular War. The club betting book is real, and includes bets on anything and everything: bets on political outcomes, and social questions such as who would marry whom, and just about anything else. During the Regency period, Lord Alvanley, a very wealthy peer, once wagered £3,000 on which of two raindrops would first make it to the bottom of a pane in the club's famous bow window.


	7. Duels (Part III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last part of the second evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to Telanu for the beta!
> 
> Since this chapter follows on directly from where Chapter 6 left off, I thought I wouldn't wait too long before posting.

"Indeed you may have this dance, Ser Jaime," Brienne said, so surprised that she could hear it in her own voice. She wondered what he was about. Glancing over at Lord Loras, she surprised a speaking look between himself and his sister, just before Lord Renly took Lady Margaery's hand. Lord Loras's expression was sour, but only for an instant before his handsome features resumed their usual languid half-smile and he took himself off to one of the sofas by the wall.

Ser Jaime led Brienne out onto what she supposed they must call the dancefloor. Lord Renly and Lady Margaery were already waiting, and Mr Marbrand and Miss Poole joined them a moment later. The three ladies stood in a row facing the row of gentlemen, with a gap of three or four feet between the two.

Lady Stark played a chord, _fortissimo_ , to make sure that they all had her attention. Brienne waited, counting under her breath as the music struck up and the dancing began. Lady Margaery and Lord Renly were at the top of the set, so they danced first. They bowed and curtseyed, advanced, retired and advanced again, then held right hands to turn with each other, before working their way down the set. It was a jolly, easy sort of dance, with little time to stand around and wait one's turn, as could be so often the case at a ball or public assembly, where the sets were much larger. Brienne did not have time to feel self-conscious as she and Ser Jaime quickly reached the top of the set and it was their turn to work their way through the figures.

"Courage, Miss Tarth," he murmured, his right hand steady in hers as they turned, the bottom of her skirt swirling with the movement.

"Why should I require courage for a simple country dance?" she asked, as she moved away to take Mr Marbrand's left hand and turn with him while Ser Jaime did likewise with Miss Poole.

"Is not a dance akin to a battle?" Ser Jaime enquired as they met again in the middle and his right hand found hers.

"I would not know," Brienne replied, "for I have never been in battle."

"No, but surely you've been to enough balls to understand that a ballroom can sometimes be filled with as much conflict as a battlefield." She was close enough to see the laughter lurking in his green eyes.

"It is lucky that this is not a ballroom, then," Brienne said, as the steps of the dance took her to the side to turn with Lord Renly. It was the first time she had met him on a dancefloor since the night he had saved her at her come-out ball. He smiled at her, but did not attempt even such little conversation as there was time for before she was turning away again to meet Ser Jaime in the middle.

All too soon, their turn was over, and they resumed their starting positions. Brienne found that she was waiting for their next turn not with her usual mild dread when taking part in a dance but with a sort of anticipation that was not familiar. She looked down at the floor, over at the pianoforte, let her eyes follow the movements of the current top couple—Mr Marbrand and Miss Poole— and then away again. Anything but look across the floor to the man who stood opposite her and let him see whatever expression might be on her face.

Mr Marbrand and Miss Poole finished, Lord Renly and Lady Margaery started over, and before Brienne knew it, it was their turn again. Ser Jaime bowed, Brienne curtseyed, they advanced, retired and advanced again, and then his hand took hers in a firm grip. Her head was turning and spinning with exhilaration as the rest of her turned and turned again through the figures of the dance. She felt a great smile spread across her lips and she didn't even try to stop it. Just for tonight she would allow herself to let down her guard, to feel young and free, truly free of care, just for the duration of the dance.

One country dance flowed into another, and when at last Lady Stark played the final chords, all six of them fell about laughing and gasping for breath.

"More, more!" Lady Margaery cried, leading a round of applause for Lady Stark. "And this time, _you_ should take part, Loras," she added, turning to her brother, who had risen from his seat on the sofa.

Lady Margaery sent a meaningful look Brienne's way, and the smile dropped from Brienne's lips. Lord Loras did not look enthusiastic. In fact, he was looking her up and down in a way that was all too humiliatingly familiar to Brienne. That look said he was all too conscious of the difference in height between the two of them and that he did not find the prospect of dancing with her pleasing in the slightest.

Brienne cringed, feeling her shoulders hunch without conscious volition, tucking her chin in against her chest as if readying herself for a blow, and trying desperately not to let herself fold her arms protectively across her chest as the heat raced up her neck to her face.

"Of course you should have your turn, Lord Loras," said a voice, a male voice, but it did not belong to Ser Jaime or Lord Renly. Startled, Brienne looked up and found Mr Marbrand walking over to the sofa. "I'm sure Miss Poole would appreciate some respite from having her toes repeatedly bruised by my two left feet." Since Mr Marbrand was an unusually graceful dancer, for a military gentleman, this was clearly a lie. Brienne sought out his gaze, her bottom lip trembling just a little. She would remember this kindness.

"Could we have something slower this time, Lady Stark, if you please?" Lady Margaery asked as Lord Loras came over and bowed before Miss Poole. "Perhaps a waltz?"

"A waltz, Lady Margaery? I am not sure that that is such a good idea." Lady Stark frowned.

"They danced the waltz at Almack's this past season," Lady Margaery said. "Though of course the young ladies had first to get permission to waltz from one of the patronesses."

"Did they indeed?" Lady Stark's eyebrows rose. She was well-acquainted with all of the lady patronesses of Almack's, Brienne knew, but Lady Stark had not come to London this year. "That sounds like the Countess Lieven's influence," she said, grimacing a little as she named the wife of the Russian ambassador. "Still, even if it might be considered a trifle fast for an unmarried young lady to dance the waltz in public, there can be no such impropriety when dancing in a respectable private home, and a ducal seat at that." And she sat down at the pianoforte to leaf through the pile of sheet music, until she found a waltz that met with her approval. To her mind, clearly, anything that was good enough for Riverrun must be more than good enough for some London club, even the hallowed Almack's, whose patronesses had the power to make or break the chances of many a young lady.

Brienne was not so sanguine at the thought of dancing the waltz, here or anywhere. She got along well enough in a country dance, or even in the cotillion or quadrille, but in a waltz, where one must dance in the arms of one's partner… Brienne let out a shaky breath. She had never danced the waltz at any gathering, large or small, public or private. The only times she had danced it at all were with her dancing master, before he finally despaired of her and departed back to the mainland to teach the many no doubt pretty and graceful daughters of some wealthy and well-connected household in the home counties.

Lord Renly was bowing over Lady Margaery's hand, so it was really only a formality when Ser Jaime did the same and asked Brienne if he might have this dance with her.

"I- I- I am not the best partner for the waltz, just to warn you in advance, Ser Jaime," she cautioned.

"Really, Miss Tarth. You surprise me," Ser Jaime said, smiling lazily.

Brienne flushed. "Do not mock me, ser. We cannot all be beautiful and graceful like...." She glanced over at Lady Margaery.

"And I tell you again, Miss Tarth, that you surprise me," Ser Jaime said, his gaze suddenly somehow sharper. "A lady so sure-footed as you proved to be this morning should be able to dance the steps of the waltz with ease."

Brienne let out a breath, still not sure whether he was mocking her, even now. He had called her graceless this morning, after all. "Just remember that I did warn you," she said.

"Is that a 'yes'?" Ser Jaime asked."I'd just like to be completely sure before the music starts," he added when she did not answer but gave him a hard stare.

"Yes, it's a 'yes'," Brienne said with a sigh, and let him take her right hand. She placed her left hand on his shoulder and swallowed hard as his right hand came to rest in the middle of her back. So close. They were standing so very close. She could feel hard, toned muscle against her palm, separated only by a few layers of fabric.

They were the last of the three couples to take up the starting position, so only a moment later, Lady Stark began to play once more. The tempo was not _allegretto_ , which would have had the ladies' skirts whirling as if in a storm, but _moderato_. Lady Margaery had requested something slower, and it seemed that Lady Stark was obliging her.

The steps to the waltz were not complicated. It should have been an easy dance. And yet it was not. Brienne was terribly aware of how close she stood to Ser Jaime, of how she stood out from all the other young people with her height and her great thumping feet. The four at the other end of the room were intent on their card game, she reminded herself. They were not looking. Even Mr Marbrand, who was of course watching the dancers, had eyes mainly for Miss Poole and her new partner, it seemed, while Lady Stark's attention was taken up by the music. And yet it felt as if every eye in the room, and a hundred more beside, were fixed on Brienne.

She stumbled, very nearly stepping backwards onto Miss Poole's slippered foot. Brienne blushed and muttered an apology as Ser Jaime caught her and stopped her from falling right over, his fingers splayed against her ribs. They waited a moment, as the other two couples swept past them, and then began again.

This time, Brienne's feet tangled together after barely more than two steps and she fell heavily against Ser Jaime. His chest felt just as strong and muscular as his shoulder had, as her breasts, such as they were, pushed up against him. She screwed her eyes shut tight in utter mortification even as she tried to draw back.

"This won't do," Ser Jaime said, and Brienne felt the warm pressure of his hand leave her back.

"I know," Brienne said miserably, forcing her eyes open. "Would you prefer to sit this dance out and watch the others for a time?"

"No, I think not," Ser Jaime said, to her great surprise. "Come with me."

He still had hold of her hand, and he led her back out through the door and into the dining room. Brienne did not resist, more out of surprise and confusion than acquiescence. It was darker out here than in the drawing room, with almost all of the candles having been extinguished now that the servants had finished clearing away after dinner. Apart from the slowly dying fire, the only other source of light was what streamed in from the drawing room. They were alone in here, though they could be seen clearly through the drawing room doorway, so technically there was no impropriety.

Still, they were alone.

"What are you doing?" she asked, a trifle uneasy.

" _We_ are going to practise," Ser Jaime said, "away from other dancing feet and watching eyes."

"Why?" she asked stupidly, unable to voice her question any more elegantly.

"Because just as I wished to fence this morning, this evening I wish to dance. In both cases my choice of partner was and is extremely limited."

"So you're forced to _make do_ with me," Brienne said, anger flashing through her so sharply that it did away with every other emotion.

Ser Jaime shook his head, a look of genuine amusement on his face. "You do rise to the bait so very easily."

"So it's not an insult? You're just mocking me for fun?" Brienne asked.

Ser Jaime sighed. "Talking. Conversing. The sorts of things that people say in the midst of a dance."

"Do you habitually mock your dance partners, then? I wonder that any lady ever agrees to stand up with you more than once."

Ser Jaime sighed again. "I don't mock my dance partners, as a general rule, and I'm not mocking you now. As I said, I brought you out here to practise. Just as with swordplay, dancing is a skill that always works better when you stop thinking about every single move and just let it happen."

Brienne eyed him with uncertainty. He had the truth of it when it came to fencing. She knew only too well how much smoother and surer her moves became when she lost herself in the moment. Could dancing be the same? There was only one way to find out, and Ser Jaime was offering her the opportunity to do so. Or so he said.

"Very well," she said, gathering her courage and stepping forward to place her left hand on his right shoulder. His right hand slid around her waist, and only then did Brienne realise that his left hand was still clasped in hers.

"On the third measure," Ser Jaime said. " _One_ -two-three, _two_ -two-three and-"

Off they went, though not for long, because inevitably Brienne fell over her own feet after they'd glided around a couple of times. Still, it was better than when she'd tried to waltz under the gaze of what had felt like so very many censorious eyes in the drawing room.

Ser Jaime did not chastise, or even say anything very much. He merely stopped, ensured that they had the right starting position and counted them in again. "Think of it as a duel," he said. "Do you really want me to best you so quickly?"

"No," Brienne said firmly. This, at least, was something she understood.

This time, she did better. Around and around they twirled, as Ser Jaime led with sure feet up and down the dining room. She actually managed to laugh at herself when at last she stumbled, and surprised an answering grin on Ser Jaime's face.

"Better," he said. "And again."

And away they went, _one_ -two-three, _one_ -two-three, _one_ -two-three, until Brienne forgot to count, forgot to think, forgot everything but the feel of his hand at her back and the other clasped in hers, holding her so close that she fancied she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. They moved as one, her feet following his with a sureness she'd never felt anywhere without a sword in her hand. It felt right, just as it had the first time she'd laid her hand on his arm and he'd escorted her in to dinner. The first time ever she'd touched him.

It was almost a physical shock when the music stopped. They stood there, still facing each other, panting just a very little and holding each other in the closed position of the waltz, but Brienne was barely conscious of anything but the sight of Ser Jaime's eyes fixed on her parted lips. Of course, she was slightly taller than he; his eyes had been near level with her mouth the whole time they had been waltzing.

He looked up into her eyes, but then his gaze strayed down to her mouth again, and Brienne forgot how to breathe. It would take only a single step by either of them, such a tiny movement, to close the gap between them properly, to touch-

"Miss Tarth," Lady Stark said from the doorway.

They jumped apart, both of them, like two scalded cats.

Brienne swallowed. "Lady Stark," she said. Her voice sounded as if it did not belong to her and her cheeks felt as if they were ablaze. She must surely look wildly flushed, even in the soft light from the fire. She swallowed again. "Do you require my assistance with something?"

"I came only to tell you that the dancing is over—in case you had not noticed—and that the others will no doubt retire upstairs as soon as they finish their final rubber of whist."

"Th- thank you, Lady Stark," Brienne said, though she had never felt less thankful for anything in her life.

"I believe I will go upstairs myself now. Would you care to accompany me?" Lady Stark asked.

"Of course, Lady Stark," Brienne said. She dared to cast a glance at Ser Jaime then. His eyes were wide, and there was a touch of something wild and unfettered in their depths that only Brienne was close enough to see, but otherwise he looked much as he always did—which was to say, devastatingly handsome and faintly amused. "Thank you for the practice, Ser Jaime, and for a most pleasant evening's entertainment. I will feel much more assured on the dance floor the next time I have the opportunity to waltz."

"The pleasure was mine, Miss Tarth," he said, bowing.

Lady Stark made some sort of noise, then. It must have been a cough, for she took out her handkerchief and choked into it. "Good evening, Ser Jaime," she said very firmly.

"Good evening Lady Stark, Miss Tarth," Ser Jaime said, bowing to Lady Stark now.

She gave him a stiff little nod, and Brienne was reminded of how very nearly rude Lady Stark had been to him when he had arrived at Riverrun—was it only yesterday? Lady Stark had taken care to have as little to do with Ser Jaime as possible since then, Brienne realised. There was some story there.

"Miss Tarth?" Lady Stark bent her arm and Brienne had no choice but to place her hand in the crook of it. They stopped only long enough in the drawing room to bid their hosts and the other guests good night, and then Brienne and Lady Stark were mounting the grand central staircase together.

To Brienne's surprise, Lady Stark walked her all the way to her bedchamber, and then followed her inside.

"Leave us," she commanded Sarah, who was in a chair by the fire, knitting.

"At once, my lady," Sarah said, bobbing her head as she gathered up her knitting and retreated hastily to the dressing room.

"You wished to speak with me privately, Lady Stark?" Brienne enquired. It seemed obvious that she must, but Lady Stark had not actually said anything to her yet.

"Sit down with me a moment, my dear," Lady Stark said. Her expression was not angry, as Brienne had half-expected, but troubled.

There were two chairs set before the fire, comfortable old wing chairs in the Queen Anne style that had probably been banished here from one of the main rooms downstairs after it had been redecorated. Brienne took the one recently vacated by Sarah, while Lady Stark took the other.

"There was no impropriety," Brienne blurted out as soon as they were both seated. "You may have noticed that I stumbled when the waltz first began. Ser Jaime took me into the dining room merely to allow me to practise without so many eyes on me."

"Without _any_ eyes on you, or so it appeared to me," Lady Stark said, her expression very serious.

"The door was open. Anyone could have seen from the drawing room," Brienne protested, and knew even as she said it that she protested rather too much. She coloured.

Lady Stark sighed, and reached over to take Brienne's hand. "My dear, I do not doubt that you behaved exactly as a lady should. _Your_ sense of propriety is not in doubt."

"But it's not just that, is it?" Brienne said, fairly sure that she knew what was coming next.

Lady Stark sighed again, and returned her hand to her lap. "Yesterday I warned you to be careful of the Dowager Duchess. And that warning still holds. However, had Jaime _Lannister_ already arrived then I would have warned you doubly against him." Her voice went as hard and cold as ice as she uttered Ser Jaime's surname.

"You do not like Ser Jaime, Lady Stark. I see that."

Lady Stark let out a mirthless laugh. "It's not a question of liking, Miss Tarth, though it is very true that I do not like him, or any member of his family. It is a question of trust. Do not trust Ser Jaime or any of the Lannisters. My dear Ned—Lord Stark—discovered this in the most dreadful manner possible when he and Lord Tywin Lannister—Ser Jaime's father, as I'm sure you know—were members of the last government together."

"Oh?" Brienne said. She had not been expecting Lady Stark to speak of her husband.

Lady Stark shook her head. "The details are not important. The son can hardly be held to account for the father's actions, and yet it meant that I was not at all surprised when I heard of that incident that occurred when Ser Jaime was in Spain."

"May I ask what incident of which you speak?" Brienne asked, though she did not want to hear the answer. Her stomach felt as if she had swallowed a stone.

"The incident in which Ser Jaime—though of course he was not Ser Jaime then but merely Captain Lannister—acquired the notorious sobriquet of 'Kingslayer'."

"Kingslayer?" Brienne asked, unsure of what to make of it, except that it was clearly not meant as a compliment.

"Surely you've heard of it?"

"No," Brienne said, shaking her head. "I do not read the London newspapers, assuming that the matter was reported there, and my father does not speak to me of their contents."

Lady Stark sighed yet again. "Colonel King led the First Dragoons at the battle of Fuentes de Oñoro."

"Yes, I know that," Brienne said slowly. "The Colonel died in that battle. So did my brother, who was also a member of that regiment."

Lady Stark's blue eyes went wide. "I did not realise," she said.

"I don't speak of it often," Brienne said shortly.

Lady Stark nodded. "Of course you do not," she said, and for a moment her voice sounded as it usually did, full of warmth and a motherly sort of concern for Brienne.

"So, what happened to Colonel King?" Brienne asked. Her voice sounded odd and hoarse.

"No one knows for sure. There was an inquiry afterwards, but the details were suppressed. It's easy enough to manage that sort of thing if one's father is not only a member of the government at the highest level but also a member of one of the greatest noble houses in the kingdom," Lady Stark said, the bitterness plain in her voice. “However, it is said, by… reliable sources, that Ser Jaime killed his commanding officer in cold blood. He shot Colonel King in the back, giving him no chance even to defend himself. Of course it was during a battle, and in all the confusion perhaps the bullet came from some other weapon. Perhaps. But Ser Jaime was found standing over the body of his fallen commanding officer, his pistol still in his hand. He has been known as the Kingslayer from that day to this, though there are few brave or foolhardy enough to name him so to his face. It's an absolute travesty that he was not only promoted to major but knighted as well not long after. Him. A man without honour."

Lady Stark stared bleakly into the fire for a moment. Brienne said nothing. She _could_ say nothing.

Lady Stark looked up again, looked at Brienne, and her eyes were fierce, at once somehow both ice hard and boiling with rage. "I say to you again, Miss Tarth. Be wary of Ser Jaime, and do not trust him in the slightest."

Brienne swallowed, and blinked, and swallowed again. Finally, she said in a thread of a voice, "Thank you for the warning, Lady Stark. I will keep it firmly in mind."

Lady Stark smiled sadly. "I know you will." She got to her feet. "And now I will leave you to rest in readiness for tomorrow. Now that the rain seems to have stopped, perhaps we may get to see something of the grounds before the end of your stay."

"I would like that," Brienne said, because it seemed the expected response. She got up as well.

"Good night, my dear Miss Tarth," Lady Stark said, taking and squeezing her hand.

"Good night, Lady Stark," Brienne said. "Thank you for your concern."

Lady Stark squeezed her hand once more, and then walked to the door and let herself out of the bedchamber.

Brienne sank back into her chair.

He had lied to her. Ser Jaime had lied to her. He'd told her that he didn't remember Galladon, but he had been present at the battle where Galladon lost his life. Even if he had not seen Galladon fall, he must have known—he must _know_ —the details of her brother's demise.

But then, he was a man without honour, was he not? A man who would shoot another man in the back, and not just any man: his commanding officer, the one to whom he owed his loyalty first, most particularly on the battlefield.

Brienne felt sick to her stomach. This was the man she had danced with tonight. The man she had smiled at, talked with, _laughed_ with and all but kissed.

She swallowed hard and shifted in her seat, forcing herself to sit straight and tall and determined. Brienne had no right to ask Ser Jaime—the _Kingslayer_ —about the circumstances in which he had earned that damning nickname. However, her brother's death was a different story. The Kingslayer knew something of what had happened to Galladon, and he would tell her of it. He _would_ tell her, and before either of them was very much older.

She would make sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * **Almack's** was one of the few mixed sex clubs catering to London high society during the Regency. The club was run by a committee of about half a dozen prominent and (mostly) titled lady patronesses, and held balls in Almack's Assembly Rooms once a week during the social season. The lady patronesses enforced the rules of their exclusive club on everyone; the Duke of Wellington was once refused admittance because he was not dressed formally enough. It was a place to see and be seen, but one could not just turn up. Ambitious mothers of young ladies being launched into society would need to obtain vouchers from one of the patronesses to attend Almack's. To be seen dancing at Almack's was to have arrived. 
>   * **The waltz** was considered a scandalous dance when it was first introduced to Great Britain from the continent during the Regency. Up until then, dances were performed in groups, or sets, the sort of thing you still see today with square dances. The waltz was the first dance specifically to be danced by individual couples and it was extremely intimate compared to the dances that people were used to. Countess Lieven, the wife of the Russian ambassador and one of the lady patronesses of Almack's, was one of the driving forces in introducing the waltz into the _ton_.
> 

> 
> **You can read a version of part of this chapter from Addam's POV[here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21228110/chapters/50676731) **


	8. Dreams and Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime has a dream. Brienne demands some answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Telanu for the beta!
> 
> Note the change of rating, in case that's an issue for you.

It was quite late when Jaime retired to his bedchamber that night, though he did not seek his bed for some time. After he had dismissed Smith for the night, he sat by the fire in a burgundy silk frogged dressing-gown borrowed from the Duke, a snifter of brandy in his hand, and stared into the flames.

He had a problem, and it was named Miss Tarth. He had known she was trouble from the moment he set eyes on her and saw those Tarth blue eyes looking back at him. He had just been mistaken about the sort of trouble she presented. He had thought that every time he saw her from then on he would be able to think of nothing but her dead brother. He was wrong. All too soon, so very quickly, he had found that when he looked in her eyes all he could see was Miss Tarth herself.

The gown she had worn this evening had brought out the colour of her eyes even more than was usual. He hadn't been able to look away as she had come down the stairs into the great hall before dinner. She was broad of face and plain, with pale skin that freckled. She was impossibly tall, she was stubborn and determined, her musical talent was decidedly modest and her talent with a sword was decidedly not. She was in every way the opposite of the sort of beautiful, accomplished young lady that London teemed with during the Season. And maybe that was part of the problem. Ever since he'd been parted from Cersei all those years ago, every beautiful, accomplished young lady that Jaime had met had left him cold. Miss Tarth, on the other hand, had left—still left—him very much _not_ cold.

He had wanted to kiss her tonight. He was still startled—shocked—by the realisation. Jaime had never wanted to kiss anyone but Cersei before. They'd grown up together at Casterly Rock, she the daughter of his father's twin, both of them motherless, and, along with their younger brothers, left to run quite wild by absent and grieving fathers. So close were they in age and so like to look at, they'd often been mistaken for twins themselves. And then, when they'd reached the age to notice such things, of course they had noticed each other. They'd done more than notice; they'd fallen madly, hopelessly in love. The outcome had seemed obvious to him, naïve young idiot that he’d been. He'd thought that they would marry, that they _could_ marry. He'd reckoned without Cersei's value as currency in the transactions that made up the marriage mart. Her father had plans for her that did not include Jaime. Things might have been different, almost certainly would have been different, had Cersei had no brother. In those circumstances, a marriage between Jaime and Cersei would have been desirable. But his cousin Lancel had been hale and hearty then, a worthy successor to the dukedom, in due course. Cersei's destiny was to be a wife, but not Jaime's wife.

Cersei had been married to Robert Baratheon, Duke of the Stormlands and a man already well into his prime, before she was twenty years old, while Jaime had found himself joining a cavalry regiment almost before he'd had time to turn around.

He'd seen her less than a dozen times from that day to this, and never alone, but he carried her image in his heart. No other lady could ever, or would ever, compare with the memory of his gorgeous, golden girl. In the years since, he'd been careful never to go further than the lightest of flirtations with any young lady, so as not to run the risk of a misunderstanding. He'd certainly never kissed any one of them. He'd lain with camp followers, occasionally, when he had a physical need that required assuaging, but he'd never kissed one of them, either.

And yet he had wanted to kiss Miss Tarth tonight. And she had wanted to kiss him. There could be no mistaking it. Everything she felt showed clearly on her face, written there in every mood of her remarkable blue eyes, ranging from bright midday azure to the dark grey of a stormy winter, and punctuated in her cheeks in shades of rose and crimson and even, sometimes, touches of puce. Tonight had been no exception, as they stood there, still holding each other, almost embracing, after the music stopped. Miss Tarth's eyes were huge and darker than he'd ever seen them, her skin a soft gold, all warmth and invitation as the light from the fire flickered over it. Her mouth was large. Too large, he would have said before. And yet…

Jaime jumped up, almost spilling the glass of brandy in his haste. He paced over to the window, and then back across the room to the door, trying desperately to summon the beloved image of Cersei to his mind. And yes, he remembered her face, could never forget it, not to his dying day. But the details were fuzzy and indistinct, somehow, and easily overpowered by the memory of vivid blue eyes that did not belong to a dying young man.

Cursing, Jaime drained his glass, welcoming the burn of the alcohol down his throat. Less welcome was the fire it lit in his belly. But then, he felt overheated already. How this could be, in this huge, draughty house with the fire already burning low, he didn't like to think.

He set down the empty glass and flung off his dressing-gown, leaving it over the back of a chair for Smith to spirit away in the morning. Having first divested himself of his slippers, he got into bed, blew out the candle, and shut his eyes, willing sleep to claim him.

It did not.

He rolled onto his side, and then onto his other side. He tossed. He turned. And at last he wound up lying on his back again, staring up at the bed canopy.

Letting out a succinct but heart-felt curse, he rolled over onto his stomach and pulled the covers up over his head.

He did not remember falling asleep, and yet he must have done, for there she was, in his arms again, all blue eyes and fire-kissed golden skin, there for him to drink his fill of the sight of her with his eyes, there for him to touch her softness with his fingers, there for him to kiss…

Before his lips could touch her, she turned away from him, showing him the full expanse of the broad, pale shoulder and long back he'd felt beneath his fingers as they'd danced the waltz together. Soft, so soft. When he called for her to come back, she merely smiled mysteriously, and waited. She would not come to him. He must come to her. He must choose.

No, he wouldn't. He couldn't. He was Cersei's, once, now and always. He would not kiss, or even touch with intent, any lady but her.

But then _she_ turned and he realised that they were holding hands, just as they had done tonight when he'd led her from that room full of people to their private dance. He didn't need to come to her. She was here already, leaning over him now, one long-fingered, capable hand stroking his cheek, stopping to cup his face. He shuddered.

Her lips brushed his, wide and soft and perfect, and he sighed into the kiss. He wanted to feel her softness under his hands. That wasn't choosing, not if she leaned against him, leaned into his touch. That was just…

He didn't have to choose. He didn't have to do anything. He could just wait and let what might happen… happen.

She was above him now. His cock lurched into wakefulness as he felt her powerful thighs straddle him. And then it was so easy, to reach out for her, to touch and then caress one small, perfect breast with one hand as the other clutched her rounded hip. To buck his hips and push up into her slick, welcoming depths. To feel her clench around him and to listen to the small, desperate sounds she made as she moved above him, until he rose to meet her, again and again. To lose everything to sensation: restraint, memory, himself. To let go with a roar and plunge, pulsing and sated, into the deep blue abyss that opened up beneath him.

Jaime awoke to cold, sticky sheets, and sudden daylight as Smith pulled back the curtains. He blinked a few times, and then he was quite awake, a useful trait in the soldier he still was, even if there were no more wars for him to fight.

He got out of bed and went over to the window. Yes, that was daylight doing its best to push through the clouds. The sky was grey but it was definitely no longer raining.

"I'll ride before breakfast," Jaime decided. The rain had kept him trapped inside the confines of the house for long enough. He needed to get away, to ride out in the fresh air without the distraction of… anyone, and clear his head. He felt almost as if he'd been imprisoned at Riverrun for a year or more, instead of just a couple of days.

"Very good, ser," Smith said, already taking Jaime's riding coat from the wardrobe.

He was barely aware of Smith helping him to dress. The vestiges of his dream were vague and yet unsettling, tendrils of memory teasing at him and then dancing away out of reach when he tried to capture them and look at them properly.

Perhaps that was just as well.

He went to the stables the long way, down the grand central staircase and into the great hall. All was deserted down here, even the armoury—which was really not to be wondered at, given the early hour. He opened the huge old oak front door and took himself out into the great court, along the side of the house to the stable court, and thence to the coach house.

He arrived at the stables to find that he was not the only guest who had thought to escape the house on horseback this morning. A tall, fair-haired figure wearing a riding habit in a deep shade of teal stood facing away from the door by a stall at the far end of the stable, conversing with one of the grooms.

Jaime's heart leapt, just the tiniest bit, at the sight of her. He had forgotten what it was like to feel truly glad to see someone.

"Miss Tarth," he called as he approached her, not trying to stop the smile that came to his lips.

Miss Tarth's shoulders tensed, but it was a moment before she turned to face him. When she did so, he saw that her features were drained of colour and her lips were pinched. And the look in her eyes was one he had never seen there before.

"Good morning, Ser Jaime," she said in a low voice.

Did he imagine it, or had she placed some added emphasis on the word when she addressed him as 'Ser'?

"Miss Tarth," he said again, careful not to let the pricking of unease he felt show on his face or in his voice, "forgive me, but is anything amiss?"

Her eyes flashed, cold and stormy, the sort of weather from which a prudent man would seek shelter. However, prudence was one thing of which Jaime had never been accused. A lesser man might have taken a step back, at least, but Jaime stood his ground.

"Is something _amiss_?" she echoed. "No, I don't believe 'amiss' is the word that I would use."

Something in Miss Tarth's tone must have alerted the groom, because when Jaime gave a meaningful jerk of his head towards the door, the young man muttered something about returning when miss had need of him, and took to his heels.

"Then what word would you use, Miss Tarth?" Jaime asked. His tone was pleasant, light, conversational, but he watched for her response, for any slight movement or subtle shift of expression—not that her expressions were ever subtle.

"You lied to me. _Kingslayer_ ," she spat out, her eyes huge and furious and… hurt?

He went quite still and there was a short silence before he said, "Ah, I see someone has been telling tales. Let me guess. The estimable Lady Stark, perhaps?" He wanted to go away inside, to let her words wash over him and away, like water. It was usually an easy thing for him to do, he who had been called to account so many times in his life by those who never wanted to hear his side of anything. But that word on her lips hit him now with the force of an arrow, shattering his pretended calm.

"She told me the tale of how you became known as the Kingslayer," Miss Tarth said.

Jaime felt his whole face tense. "No, she did not," he said, every word short and clipped. "No one but I, and the board of inquiry, know the full story of what happened that day, so whatever the _Duchess_ has told you is mere supposition, and incorrect."

"She prefers to be known as Lady Stark," Miss Tarth pointed out sharply.

"And I prefer not to be known as 'Kingslayer'. We can't always get what we want." He shook his head, in mock-sadness.

Miss Tarth ignored this and returned to what she clearly felt to be the important part of the conversation. "How can you know that what she told me is incorrect when you don't even know what she said?"

"My dear Miss Tarth, I would guess that I heard almost every rumour about me that swirled about London after I returned home after that battle three years ago. Not a one of them came even close to the truth."

Miss Tarth stared at him, frowning. Those blue eyes of hers looked as if they would pierce his soul. "It's no business of mine," she said at last. "I don't think there's anything you could say, any explanation you could give, that would make me think well of your part in whatever happened when… when the Colonel died, but it's not my place to ask for explanations. Not about that, at least."

Jaime sighed wearily. "And now we come to the crux of the matter. Your brother." He didn't even attempt to make it sound like a question.

"Why did you lie to me?" The words burst from her sharply, like a lightning flash.

"Lie? I didn't lie."

"You let me believe-"

"Yes, all right, I let you _believe_. But it was a sin of omission at worst, not at all an outright lie. All I said, if you will remember, is that the name Galladon Tarth was not one that I would forget if I had heard it. And that was true. I had heard it and I did not forget it."

"You're playing word games!" She clenched her fists at her sides in her frustration.

"'Semantics', you mean? I believe I may have been accused of indulging in that before today."

"I can well believe it!" She glared at him, her chest heaving beneath the masculine, military-style coat of her riding habit. "Why didn't you tell me that you had met him?" she asked, the look in her eyes turning bruised. It was so heartfelt an expression that he found himself wishing to offer her comfort, which was absurd, of course. He was the last person from whom she would want, or accept, comfort of any kind.

"Think about it," he said. "If I had told you that I knew your brother, that I was there that day, what would your next question inevitably have been?"

She showed him the courtesy of at least thinking the question over before she answered, the colour of her eyes deepening to a dark, serious blue. "I would have asked you what you knew about his- his death."

"And where were we at the time?" he prompted, as gently as he knew how.

"Oh," she said, realisation dawning. "You did not wish to speak of such things with listening ears all around us." She nodded thoughtfully. "But why did you not simply say that you remembered Galladon and suggest instead that we speak of him at some other time?"

"Because I did not wish to speak of that day at all, Miss Tarth. A man does not like to dwell on his failures any more than he likes to advertise them." He didn't know why he was being so honest with her, but all of the light, inconsequential observations with which he usually kept others at bay seemed to have quite deserted him. Only the raw, unadorned truth remained.

"Would you speak of it to me now? Just of my brother. Not of anything else. Please." The anger and frustration had gone out of her, and all that was left was an ineffable, weary sadness that coloured her every word.

He wanted to take her hand. He did not. "If you insist," he said.

"I don't insist. It is merely a request."

And how could Jaime deny her then?

"Very well." He sat down on the low bench that stood against the wall between two of the stalls. After a moment's hesitation, Miss Tarth seated herself beside him, but before either of them could say anything else, a horse head belonging to a tall, handsome chestnut appeared over the gate of the stall to their right. The horse nickered, a soft, friendly whoosh of a sound, its ears pointed towards them as it watched with interest.

Jaime grinned at the horse, while Miss Tarth smiled, or, at least, the corners of her mouth curved up. She stood, and took a piece of apple from her pocket to give to the horse. "It's all right," she said, stroking the horse's long neck as it crunched happily. "We won't disturb your peace and quiet for long."

Miss Tarth resumed her seat, and with another nicker, this one a little more akin to a disappointed snort as it realised that no more pieces of apple appeared to be forthcoming, the horse turned away.

"I believe that's my cue to talk," Jaime said, the grin on his face slowly fading.

"Please begin," Miss Tarth said, looking down at her gloved hands folded neatly in her lap, suddenly serious again.

He didn't insult her by asking if she were quite sure that she wanted to hear this. This was something she needed to hear, even if it would—and it _would_ —hurt her. "What do you wish to know?"

Miss Tarth lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know. Everything. Whatever you can tell me. Did you see my brother that day?"

"Oh, yes," Jaime said. "I did assuredly see him that day. I knew him quite well, as it happens, for all he'd only been with us a short time. He was difficult to miss, and difficult to forget. He had blue eyes very like yours, and he was tall. Taller than me _or_ you."

"Yes. Yes, he was," Miss Tarth said, her own blue eyes filling with tears.

"He was a good lad," Jaime said quietly. "That day… something went wrong. A part of our infantry forces, the seventh division, came under attack. It wasn't expected. There was no contingency plan for such a force coming at them from that direction. We—our regiment—had no choice but to charge in and give the infantry a chance to fight their way out. Your brother was right in the middle of it. He was a gallant fighter and a skilled horseman, for all that he was still as green as they come. I'd been in the midst of battle myself too many times to count. There was no reason to suppose that he would not emerge from such a situation just as I had done myself, many a time. But then his horse was shot from under him and he was left on his feet. I- I truly did think that he would fight his way back behind the British lines. And almost he succeeded. Almost. He fell right in front of me. I dismounted. I suppose I thought to try to drag him back to safety—relative safety—but he was already almost gone when I reached him." He stopped all at once, his tongue licking suddenly dry lips. He had barely paused for breath once he'd got going, wanting to get it all out so that the tale would be over and done with.

"What… " Miss Tarth cleared her throat and tried again, "What did you do then?"

But of course the tale was not over and done with. Not for Miss Tarth, and not for Jaime either. "Once I was certain your brother was past all help or care, I got back on my horse and went to… deal with something that needed to be dealt with."

"You _left_ him there?" Miss Tarth's eyes were round with indignation.

"My concern had to be for the living, Miss Tarth. Standing there and bemoaning his loss would not have helped your brother or anyone else. And it would have only served to draw the enemy's attention to me. We retook the village that day. I can assure you that afterwards all of the fallen British and Portuguese were given proper Christian burials. Your brother was not left there, alone and forgotten. He is with his comrades."

"That is some comfort," Miss Tarth said, very quietly.

"Is there anything else you would like to ask me?" Jaime asked. It was an open-ended sort of question. She might ask him… well, anything.

"No. Thank you," she said. "I think… I would like to be alone for a little while. I believe I will go riding after all. I need some time to think."

"As you wish," he said, getting to his feet. "I will not intrude any longer." He bowed, and left her to her thoughts, telling himself that he was not running away.

"Ser Jaime," Miss Tarth called when he had walked almost the length of the stable. He turned to look at her. She was still sitting on the bench where he had left her, and once again the chestnut was looking down at her from above, no doubt hoping for more hand-outs. "Thank you," she said. "You have my gratitude, more than you will ever know."

"It was my honour," he said, and was surprised to find that he meant it, for all that his name was a byword for dishonour in the _ton_ these days.

He found the groom, and several other young men who had the look of those who worked with the horses, waiting just outside the stable door.

"It's safe to go back in," he told them with a grin. "Miss Tarth will want a horse saddled and ready for her as soon as may be."

"Yes, ser," the lad who had been attending her replied, and he hurried inside, followed by the other young men.

Jaime stopped the last one. "My horse is named Honour. You know which one he is?"

"Aye, indeed I do, ser," the groom said. "A fine Spanish grey, ain't he?"

"That's Honour," Jaime agreed. "Get him saddled up for me. I've a mind to go riding this morning."

"Of course, ser," the groom said. "I'll have him ready in two shakes."

"Thank you… ?" Jaime asked, waiting for the groom to supply his name.

"I'm Tom, ser."

"Thank you, Tom. I am Ser Jaime Lannister, but you knew that, I think."

"I knows who belongs to all the horses," the lad said.

"I am glad to hear it. Now, be quick about it."

"Aye, ser," Tom said, and hurried off into the stable.

Jaime loitered. There could be no other word for it, for there was little for him to do but kick his heels—literally—against the wall while he waited.

After a few minutes, the groom who had been attending to Miss Tarth led the chestnut out of the stables. Jaime was surprised to see that she was a mare, though a very large one. But then, what horse could be more suitable for a lady like Miss Tarth?

Miss Tarth followed. She used the mounting block, and soon she was perched, looking slightly ill at ease, on the horse's back, side saddle. Jaime was willing to bet that she never used a mounting block, or rode side saddle, when she was at home on Tarth, which almost certainly meant that she usually rode in breeches. He barely stopped himself from grinning as he noticed her men's top-boots peeping out from beneath the skirt of her riding habit.

The habit itself was at least ten years out of date, and yet it suited Miss Tarth very well. The recent styles had become increasingly frilly and feminine, but Miss Tarth's habit was of a more severe, masculine cut, harking back to those from the last century, which took their influence from military coats and were made by a gentleman's tailor rather than a seamstress. Even her matching hat was hardly different from the curly-brimmed beaver that Jaime wore.

She walked the horse a couple of times around the yard, holding the reins with the assurance of an experienced horsewoman. That done, she nodded to the groom. "I'll take the path down to the village," she said. "I shouldn't be more than an hour at most."

"Very good, miss," the groom replied.

Jaime raised a hand in farewell as Miss Tarth rode the chestnut to the archway that led to the long, gravel drive. She did not wave back, but she caught his gaze and held it as she trotted past.

Tom emerged from the stable then, leading Honour. Not having to deal with a skirt, mounting block or side saddle, Jaime was up in his saddle much more quickly than the time it had taken Miss Tarth to mount the chestnut.

He was through the archway and out onto the drive in hardly more than a heartbeat. In the distance, he could see Miss Tarth, just turning off the drive onto the path that must lead down to the village. Keeping Honour at a trot, so as not to catch up before she had had the time to herself that she had requested, he took the same route.

Jaime did not ask himself just why he was following Miss Tarth. He was a little afraid of finding out what his answer might be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No historical notes this time, but if there's an historical detail that isn't clear, just ask in the comments.
> 
>  **ETA 9 March 2020:** No, this story definitely isn't abandoned! I'm just trying to get some other WIPs out of the way before I come back to this one, because it's going to require all of my attention. I'll post on [my tumblr](https://luthienebonyx.tumblr.com/) when I'm working on it again.


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